Boris

The Tokyo heavy-music trio whose 70-minute piece Flood is played in full in the live recording we hold.

Heavy rock

Boris formed in Tokyo in 1992 as a four-piece and took their name from a Melvins song. Takeshi plays bass and rhythm guitar, with a double-necked bass and guitar since 2001; Wata plays lead guitar and keyboards; Atsuo switched from vocals to drums in 1996, when Nagata left. Wikipedia lists metal, stoner rock, noise rock, drone and post-rock, and notes that the band avoids a fixed style and does not see itself as a heavy metal band; records are mostly made in-house with minimal overdubs. Their debut Absolutego (1996) appeared on their own label, Fangs Anal Satan, followed by Amplifier Worship (1998) and Black: Implication Flooding with Keiji Haino (1998).

Flood was released in Japan on December 15, 2000. Heavy Rocks (2002), Akuma no Uta, Boris at Last -Feedbacker- (2003) and Pink (2005) followed; the US reissue of Pink on Southern Lord was named one of 2006's best by Blender and SPIN and made Pitchfork's top ten of 2006. Collaborations include Merzbow from 2002, Sunn O))) on Altar (2006), Michio Kurihara on Rainbow, Ian Astbury on BXI (2010) and Endon. They opened for Nine Inch Nails on part of the 2008 Lights in the Sky tour, and Jim Jarmusch, who used them on The Limits of Control soundtrack (2009), compared their live approach to jazz musicians. In 2017, their 25th year, they considered retiring and continued after making Dear. NO (2020) was released as a surprise during the pandemic, and W, Fade and a third Heavy Rocks followed in 2022.

The 2013 US Residency Tour gave two nights per city, the first of all-time classics and the second with Flood in full, in Washington on May 2, Allston on May 5, New York on May 7, Chicago on May 11, Seattle on May 19, San Francisco on May 22 and Los Angeles on May 24. In 2018 they played a Flood 25th Anniversary Show at Shindaita Fever in Tokyo on September 22. Third Man Records pressed Flood on vinyl for the first time in 2021, and the album was added to streaming services on December 15, 2025. Boris played Roadburn on April 19, 2026 with two sets, one on Pink and one of Flood, and tour Europe in October 2026 for Pink's 20th anniversary.