SUPER ROOTS 5

This is volume 5 in the "Super Roots" series that charted the Boredoms' gradual transformation in the mid 1990s from post-hardcore avant garde maniacs to post-Gong cosmic noise trippers. This particular volume is significant in that it finally pushes the Boredoms' sound into the outer reaches of space. A single 60+ minute track titled "Go!!!!!" offers a remarkably sustained explosion of pure amplified sound. Taken in roughly three 20 minute "breaths", each punctuated by a frenzied scream, this is heavy stuff indeed.

This release pulls Boredoms further away from "rock" than they had ever gone to this point, and yet this may be one of their most powerful and energized releases of their career. The raging, howling tornado of sound seems to anticipate some of the experimental metal bands like Nadja that appeared in the following decade. Even more so than on the prior Super Roots 3, Boredoms are pushing their physical stamina to the limit here, rocketing up into the sky and spreading out in all directions for a full hour. After a while, the noise takes on the quality of a mantra, as your brain acclimatizes to the extremeness of it and starts to become a vehicle for relaxation, something that couldn't be said of any prior Boredoms album, but which could be said of everything they did afterwards.

As an experimental "EP" designed to be consumed as a "sideline" release, it only really focuses on one aspect of their sound (experimental noise/drone), but in doing so it introduced a way of making music that hadn't really been tried much before, if at all. A kind of turning point for the band, and for experimental music in general.