Hawks - Hawks

Label: Rejuvenation
Year: 2014

Limited to 250, on vinyl, issued by a French label, so...blink and you missed it.
Supposedly recorded live in the practice space, but you'd be hard pressed to think that while listening to this pristinely captured, furiously performed collection of eye bulging, guttural, fuck offs. Sounds as good as any studio session. Or at least, way better than any band practice I've ever been to.
Some of the songs on this record had shown up (in different versions) on other releases, and some were not released in any other form. Which is neat. The track 'Service Merch' (which I don't think shows up on any other record) is worth the price alone. Fucking lethal.
Hawks were so goddamn good. A truly amazing band. For serious.

DL

Boris - Pink

Label: Diwphalanx
Year: 2005

Boris, as you well know, have one of the more impenetrable discographies of the last couple decades, and frankly, one of the most frustratingly inconsistent. Or maybe "inconsistent" isn't the right term, maybe it's more "inconsistently enjoyable". Like, when they're good, they're great. But when they're bad, they're unbearable.
Remind you of the Melvins much? At least Boris code their releases with capitalization as a type of warning...like, "hey, if you're not into the droning noise, you can skip this one".
On 'Pink' they seemed to combine most of their sonic facets into one album that makes a statement on expectation and connectivity. I think. It's mostly heavy, which is good. It's accessible, which is good for the band I suppose. After this record they were embraced by non-metal types. Which, isn't a bad thing, "non-metal types" is not a shot, I more mean the kind of music nerds who would have scoffed, no doubt, at the split 7" with Tomsk-7 in 1997, but now pretend they "get it". They don't, but who cares. Fuck nerds anyway.
'Pink' has all the Boris mileposts on one long highway.
The waves of warm heavy distortion.
The freak-out acid rock boogie.
The lurching stoner sludge.
The fuzzed out hardcore slashers.
And the tongue-in-cheek supercharged rock tropes as run through a mountain of Orange amps.

So, if Jesu, Acid Mothers Temple, Melvins, Mogwai, or Flower Travelin' Band are in your wheelhouse, and you took a pass on one of the 6 or so versions of this particular Boris release...go for it. It's worth the investment.

DL