Finally listing the new Boris, sheesh...I'm sure most of you Boris fans have already picked up yer copy of Smile either on CD or on the more recently released double LP version, but for those stragglers that still haven't grabbed this yet, we've got the limited-edition Southern Lord release of Boris' newest album Smile that comes with the bonus DVD of Boris music videos.

To begin with, this CD edition of Smile looks fucking amazing, with all new artwork from Stephen O'Malley that is completely different from the Japanese release; the packaging is printed in bright orange and silver metallic inks, and includes a sixteen-page booklet that is filled with lyrics, drawings and photos of the band, with a nifty foldout back cover...the case itself has a partial smiley face sticker stuck to it, and each one of these CD/DVD sets is machine numbered out of 3,000 copies and now sold out from the label and most other sources. Once these are gone, we'll just have the regular single disc version in stock. It's also important to note that the track listing on the Southern Lord CD edition of Smile is different from the Japanese release...some of the songs on this version are longer than on the Japanese one, whereas the untitled final track on this version is fifteen minutes long versus nineteen on the Japanese disc, and the song "Statement" that appears here is a longer version of the track "Message" on the Japanese disc, and with a different mix. The confusing differences between the Southern Lord disc and the Japanese disc and the CD and vinyl versions have been discussed at length elsewhere, so we'll just proceed on to the jams:

Smile once again sees Ghost guitarist Michio Kurihara joined up with Boris, continuing the collaboration that started on the Rainbow album that came out last year on Drag City. When I saw Boris in D.C. over the summer, Kurihara was touring with them as well, so I'm wondering if he's now a full fledged member of the band? Anyways, I love hearing his searing psychedelic guitar in Boris' music, and he's all over a bunch of the tracks on this album. The album continues from where Pink and Rainbow left off, taking the blown-out, slow motion heavy poppiness of the former and the sunbaked psychedelia of the latter. The first song is one of album's prettiest, a cover of "Flower Sun Rain" from the cult Japanese psych band PYG that's all dreamy, reverb drenched guitars and minimal drumming, heartfelt singing and background harmonies, whirring effects and streaks of searing, solarized psych guitar, all exploding into a huge gorgeous crush of distorted riffage and wah overload at the end. "Buzz-In" follows, starting with a baby babbling in Japanese, then kicks into massive distorted garage metal with heavy, thrashing drums, that crunchy, crushing riff, swirled with gobs of fx-drenched feedback and backwards tape textures. "Laser Beam" is another devestating garage rocker, a sickoid Motorhead style riff bashed out on guitars and bass that are all ultra distorted and blown out, screaming over the thrashing fast paced beat, a weird fuzznuke soloing burning a hole through the song and loud orchestral style hits clanging in the background, collapsing in on itself at the end and becoming a soft, lovely blur of dubby percussion and hushed acoustic guitar.

The rest of the album is just as great, from the super blown garage metal stomp and extreme distortion overload of the live staple "Statement"; the gorgeous dreamy pop of "My Neighbor Satan" and it's buried, almost drum n' bass like electronic rhythms, heavy distorted guitar grinding under a bed of lovely melodies and soulful melodic vocals; the droning, sludge guitar waves and corrosive guitar leads and crumbling riffage of "Ka Re Ha Te Ta Sa Ki -- No Ones Grieve". The record closes out with a massive untitled track that stretches out to fifteen minutes, and it features Stephen O'Malley (Sunn /Khanate) lending his guitar textures to the piece. Beginning with a subdued dronescape of fragile guitar melodies and backwards moving leads over dark, airy drift, it's briefly blasted with a violent surge of super-distorted psych guitar and pounding drums before suddenly falling back into the dreamy slow motion psych dirge. Hazy, narcotized singing and gentle psych guitars wind together, until they build into a tidal wave of crushing, glacial distorto-riffage and striated with ghostly feedback and fx-soaked soloing.

The DVD that comes with this limited edition version is pretty killer, with three professionally shot music videos for the songs "Statement", "My Neighbor Satan", and "Pink".