by Jordan Michael (@jordwhyjames)
Japan and America have a strange relationship. On one side of the spectrum is the infamous fact that The Republic of Japan killed and wounded thousands of Americans in the cowardice attack on Pearl Harbor [ed note: the same can be said for the US bombing Japan]. On the opposite side is the theory that Japan copied American culture–music, alcohol, food, fashion–and possibly made it better. This doesn’t seem to have much to do with Bright New Disease, the new collaborative album from Japan’s Boris and NYC’s Uniform, but maybe it does. Life is war, and these two titans made music fit for scenes of brutal battle.
Boris (named after a Melvins song from Bullhead) goes back almost thirty years, and Uniform has had four Long Players since 2015. Third Man Records reissued a collection of Boris albums in 2019, the same year Uniform and Boris toured together as category evaders. They would perform the title track off of Boris’ Akuma no Uta as an encore on said tour, eventually building on that chemistry in the studio in July 2020, which was the same month Boris’ No came out. Bright New Disease has multiple hard edges similar to the crust of No, an album that takes five seconds to enjoy. Both of these bands are Post-Everything, isolated and resilient with waves of darkness. It is a commendable blister, and they are big fans of each other; now they are one, riffing and banging through gritty atmospherics.
Bright New Disease could maybe benefit from compartmentalization, but there is no time to complain. This Sacred Bones record is a bulldozing juggernaut. Uniform leader, Michael Berdan, is breaking out in a sweat as “You Are the Beginning” shreds violently. Wata (Boris) and Ben Greenberg (Uniform) are amazing guitar players, experienced enough for fervent, focused solos that come at any second. This is psychotic, unhinged music, but convincing enough to be catchy. Berdan is losing his mind for pure entertainment value. His head is in a bird cage on the album cover and it is no wonder that the rest of his body probably got mangled in the grind metal (“No” and “Endless Death Agony”).
Fans of heavy, gothic music will enjoy plenty of earworms here. Bright New Disease does slow down at times (“The Look is a Flame”) as the smoke of this nightmare continues to rise. “A Man from the Earth” is almost sexy and seems out of place, but the guitar bends keep the song in context. “Narcotic Shadow” might be the highlight–the blippy synthesizer goes well with the peels of guitar and eerie singing. The guitars on this album are stunning, and Greenberg and Wata deserve an award for the respect shown for classic metal.
“The Sinners of Hell (Jigoku)” is about hell. Jigoku represents hell in Japanese Buddhism. It is a region popularly believed to be made of a number of hot and cold places under Earth. Emma-O, the Japanese lord of death, rules Jigoku; they judge the dead by consulting a register that enters all sins. Apparently, the examination is assisted by two disembodied heads, resting on pillars on either side of Emma-O. Telling by the album cover, Boris and Uniform understand, and by the sounds of it, are experienced in death and darkness. Jigoku is also a 1960 film by Nobuo Nakagawa where a group of sinners involved in interconnected tales of murder, revenge, deceit and adultery all meet at the Gates of Hell. Well, consider Bright New Disease the gate. You shall pass, but there might be no tomorrow.