Boris (3) – Smile

Been wanting a copy of this since 2008 and I finally found one at my local shop. I couldn’t put this on my system fast enough and I just gotta say….. what an absolutely sublime audio experience!

Mine was used but in near mint condition and this pressing really does sound phenomenal!

Already on my 3rd full play through.

Only issue with this record is side B. Lots of noise, pops, and skips. Cleaned it multiple times and still hasn’t fixed the issue. Specifically Side B Track 2. Other than that it sounds great

Mine came with a large promo poster. Did anyone else have that?

Underrated masterpiece for sure. To understand this mess of an album you first have to understand where Boris has been up until this point. They started their career in the doom drone genre. Over fifteen years, they worked their way through sludge, post rock, stoner rock, and even punk several times over. They were at a point in their career where they were looking for something entirely new. In 2006 Boris teamed up with Michio Kurihara to tackle psychadelic music with the creation of the acclaimed but obscure Rainbow. After that they teamed up again to make this record. As you can tell by the album's unique casing, this music is much less straightforward. It feels more like a journey than it does a collection of songs. It will take you a multitude of wild places that most metal bands would never dare to go. In the end though, its a fun and memorable collection and if you have an open mind (and a nice stereo) you'll have yourself a time. The three standouts for me are the whacked-out Message, the emotionally compelling Flower Sun Rain, and the booming nihilistic Untitled.

One of those albums that does something totally original. It is very metal and very pop, but also just mixed in such a wonderfully bizarre way so that you can't really categorize it at all. Like many Boris records, it a bit of an evolution of the records preceding it, yet it is still easily identifiable as Boris. It is one of my favorite rock and roll records ever.