With the exception of “Passing,” a one-off single around this time last year, the world’s been waiting five years for the next Borzoi record (at least a select part of the world that knows what’s good for them). Back in 2018, the Austin based trio of Zach Wood (guitar, vocals), Taylor Browne (bass), and Rhys Woodruff (drums, vocals), followed four years worth of singles and EPs with their first (and so far only) full length album, A Prayer For War, it was a productive time for the band, and seemed like a sonic turning point, not so much in the music they were making (which was already exceptional), but in the way they were capturing it. The recording of A Prayer For War, for all its dissonance, density, noise, and demented chaos, sounded… pretty damn good. There’s a clarity to it, not to be mistaken with a cleanliness, but a clarity, with everything in its rightful place in a way that makes sense to the ears. In that regard however, it is a rarity in the Borzoi catalog.
Borzoi recordings have the makings of a dumpster fire, the results ill advised, potentially dangerous, possibly harmful, and there’s a distinct stench left in the smoldering wake. Depending on your taste (or perhaps your penchant for unpleasantness), their singles and EPs have ranged from impossibly blown-out to boderline unlistenable, and while some may be turned off to those earlier recordings, perhaps that’s by design. Borzoi know what they’re doing. They’ve been around for a decade, which in DIY years, practically makes them veterans and they are certainly aware of the vast world of studio recordings options available to them, but that wouldn’t be Borzoi, their vision won’t be swayed. It would seem odd to call them perfectionists, but what the hell, Borzoi are perfectionists, and their form of perfection happens to involve recordings that make your ears struggle through a deluge of overblown assault, where everything runs together but the brilliance remains. For those willing, there is no better.
That’s the important part, Borzoi are a brilliant band. Magical. One of the best in the country. Their live shows are energetic, mesmerizing, and combustible. It’s not so much about the sonic clarity, but the fact that no one else does it quite like Borzoi, their songs encompassing a degree of intelligent grit that’s unique to them, an alien force landed in Austin, Texas. With delightfully strange progressions that seem simple enough at first glance, the power-trio structure is obliterated in density, everything clamoring together like an explosive highway pile-up. On another timeline, the band’s brand of sordid art punk would have been at home on SST or Homestead Records, their music a mutant ooze of inventive noise rock, elastic post-punk, gnarled “cow punk,” and a touch of brainy hardcore. Borzoi have mangled those genres into a singular entity; stomping and whaling, the bad times and the good times collapsed into an indistinguishable swarm of sci-fi mystique and socio-politcal disdain. Since the beginning they’ve shifted focus from song to song, keeping the discordant claustrophobia of their sound in place while skittering between tracks both tense and instantly eruptive, uncompromising but focused, harsh yet strewn with unlikely hooks and hard earned grooves.
So, after five long years, the trio return with Neither The One Nor The Other, But A Mockery of Both, a new EP, surprise released this past week without fanfare via 12XU (Chris Brokaw, Winged Wheel, Water Damage). The title, seemingly a reference to the fact that the record was re-recorded several times over the past few years, is a gift of their debased sense of humor, a sign that the years haven’t left them embittered. It’s all part of the reckless charm. Upon picking up a tape while in Austin, a friend asked me about the production, wondering if it was the “refined” Borzoi of A Prayer For War or the saturated noise of the rest of the catalog. After much thought my answer was, and still is, that Neither The One… resides somewhere in-between. The EP is certainly raw, the type of raw that had TuneCore hassling the band prior to the DSP release, but it’s only blown out where it wants to be, only fractured when intentional, and somewhere within the impenetrable wall of sound, everything sits in place as intended.
From the false start of “Hero’s Theme” to its eventual scuzz-born epic nature, Borzoi continue to devolve melodies with atonal totality. It’s an introduction that, true to the name, feels as though our (specific) hero has returned, there’s a sense of triumph amid the din. The quest was long, but our hero is back, fury and sour notes abound. Borzoi haven’t lost a step, and they’ve got new tricks up their sleeves, evident from the detached and ruptured “Frac Daddy,” a song that retains a constant state of falling apart, spiraling ever deeper, countered by the buried melodicism of Woods’ vocals (which bare a coincidental resemblance to Helvetia ‘s Jason Albertini). The guitars buzz with sustain and the rhythms move in jagged patterns, it’s Borzoi calmly being pulled apart at the seems. The band’s “honky-tonk hardcore” returns to form with the punchy and blistering boogie of “Rawhide Down (Shoot The Freak pt. II)” and “Bonus Army,” rattling and thrashing in a dizzy whirlwind of unpredictable rhythms and stabs of guitars. The one two change-up of Woodruff’s and Woods’ vocals sound as deranged as ever, slurred and yelped with a sense of character, a garbled sense of menace, dread, and sarcasm. In short bursts and frenzied fits, Borzoi create a southern gem of crude brilliance pushed to the point of oblivion. By the time they’ve reached the barn-burning "Can’t Resist,” the band are quite literally buzzing, the ragged joy and off-centered rhythmic stampede threatening to push the needle well beyond mere concerns of clipping. It’s a song that wraps up the EP with a statement of intent, a primal calling that bodes well for the future. Resistance is futile. We need Borzoi.