Boris return to these shores with another deceptively supple slab of heavy noise to salve the faithful.

Opening proceedings were Growing, a US two-man outfit who, to these ignorant ears, sounded akin to Fuck Buttons if they were coming from the guitar and effects pedals end of things, rather than laptop manipulation. But it was Boris everyone was here for, and they didn’t disappoint.

Irrespective of the show’s many metal staples - the drummer, Atsuo, exhorting the crowd onwards with demands for rock hands; more dry ice than should be legal since the smoking ban; Takeshi’s double-necked guitar; Atsuo’s massive gong – Boris opened slowly with ‘Flower Sun Moon’, building it up to a slow, crushing wall of noise, before finally exploding in a burst of speed with ‘BUZZ-IN’. It is the propulsive drumming, monstrous riffs and heaviosity mingling with the weirdness that sets them apart.

Even with the punk and pop influences of Boris’s latest, the layers of effects pedals and manipulation transmuted the sound into a cerebral, otherworldly and deafening mindfuck.

Richard Davie