Boris

Manchester’s Gorilla is home to all things out of the ordinary, hosting a variety of genres under one roof. It specialises in the boundary pushers, having previously hosted bands such as They Are Gutting A Body Of Water, Frost Children and even The 1975. It’s no surprise that Boris would fit in a venue like this — and fit they did. The intimate, tunnel-like room underneath the tracks of Manchester’s rail services perfectly matched the ominous vibe given off by Boris.

Having not heard of the opener, Planning For Burial, I was quite intrigued by what they had to offer, and more importantly, who they actually were. Standing there patiently, the crowd waited for any signs of life to appear on stage. I, for one, was half expecting a full band to appear, so it caught me by surprise to find out that the project was the work of a single man, Thom Wasluck. With a sound a nearby crowd member described as “the end of a sci-fi film”, the shoegaze/drone hybrid left the entire crowd in silence as the melancholy music filled the room.

For a one-man project, what Planning For Burial pulled off was impressive. Wasluck single-handedly covered everything a full band otherwise would. The guitar was layered perfectly, and a drum machine gave plenty of backing to match the ethereal sounds. However, the drum machine was also the weakness of the set, feeling somewhat out of place in the more ambient moments, yet unnoticeable at the highs. It’s clear just how much passion Wasluck has put into this almost 20-year project, and it was a delight to see a crowd reciprocate the same love.

By the time Wasluck left the stage, the crowd was packed to the point you could barely move. This is an issue which many venues on the more intimate side seem to face, with Gorilla especially often coming under fire for it. Smoke started to fill the venue rapidly, shrouding the stage and leaving fans unable to see what was happening. Then a clangorous gong shook the venue: standing next to it, Atsuo, Boris’s drummer, struck it repeatedly to signal the start of Boris’s reign over the stage. This melted into ‘Blackout’, a slow burner, yet one of the most heavily layered songs of the night despite its relatively calm pace.

Just before the set, my friend and I had a conversation on whether there would be a pit tonight. After all, Pink contains a few songs on the slower side of Boris’s discography, alongside some heavy hitters. It was anyone’s guess, but we came to the reasonable conclusion of no. We could not have been more wrong. As soon as the first few notes of ‘Pink’ started playing, the crowd was sent into a frenzy. An uptempo yet dissonant sound rang through the venue. A streak of songs of a similar vein followed suit, their intensity challenging even the early greats of the metal world. The crowd loved every ounce of it, and it was probably the most intense crowd I’ve seen without a single crowd surfer: just pure, brutal moshing.

After burning everyone’s energy out within the first half of their set, they slowed things down into what the band does best: drone. The minimalist-yet-brutal sound mesmerised the audience. It takes a lot of skill to sustain a sound without it getting to a point of repetition, so it’s no surprise that Boris are commonly seen as the greatest of the genre. The now exhausted yet still adoring fans took in the atmosphere perfectly, admiring every single note as the emotion from the wall of sound travelled beautifully.

The talents of all three members are not to be overlooked, and penultimate track ‘Just Abandoned Myself’ proved this: a progressive tune that covers everything you could wish for in a show of theirs. Ending on the album’s opener, ‘Farewell’, was quite a bittersweet move — saying goodbye in quite an odd way, yet still showing the love that Boris have for their works, and Pink especially, with the audience sharing the same.