Boris and Uniform announce new collaborative album, Bright New Disease

Out 16th June via Sacred Bones

11 Boris & Uniform By Ebru Yildiz
Photo by Ebru Yildiz

Boris and Uniform might have seemed like a strange pairing when they teamed up for a US tour back in 2019. Sure, both bands harness the power of big, blown-out riffs, but Boris’s rock heroics, lysergic sprawl, and monolithic sludge summon a different energy than Uniform’s mechanised bombardments and frenzied assaults. However, when Boris invited Uniform to team up on a reimagined version of their classic “Akuma no Uta” as a part of their encore, there was an obvious chemistry between the artists. The idea of a collaborative album came up, and the bands spent the next year swapping song ideas and recordings from their home-base studios until Boris and Uniform had an album that captured the fearless exploration and unbridled power of their live performances.

Sacred Bones Records is proud to present the Boris & Uniform collaborative album Bright New Disease on June 16, 2023.

Bright New Disease opens with the collaboration’s first single, “You are the Beginning,” a ferocious thrash-inflected banger concocted by the Boris camp. It was the first piece the band composed during the initial day of their studio session in July 2020. As the title insinuates, the song was written with the idea that it would open the album and, hopefully, open a show one day too. “At that time, we didn’t know when we would be able to resume concerts,” says Boris’ Atsuo, “and our wish became the song directly.”  The uncertainty and anxiety of the early months of the pandemic fuelled Bright New Disease, and “You are the Beginning” sets the stage by stampeding out of the gate with vicious palm-muted riffs, snarling vocals, and dual drum bombardments courtesy of Atsuo and Uniform drummer Mike Sharp. 


LISTEN TO THE FIRST TRACK “YOU ARE THE BEGINNING” HERE OR BELOW VIA YOUTUBE:

The album’s harrowing second single “Not Surprised” has also surfaced.  The track— the album’s closer— was written with its position on a setlist in mind. “I thought it would be appropriate for the last song on the album,” says Boris’s Atsuo, “and I imagined that it would be just as cathartic if we played it at the end of the show as well.”  On “Not Surprised,” the amps are on ten; the sparring drums collide and collapse; everything vibrates to the same gut-liquifying frequency.

The lyrics to “Not Surprised” are just as vital. Berdan comments, “I’ve struggled with mental health issues for my entire life. Although years of hard work, medication, and a support network help immensely at keeping the internal violence of my mind at bay, some days will always be a little worse than others. This song is about the inherent loneliness of those bad days. The level of antipathy I feel towards the entire human race as I’m forced to function around regular people who seem to be just enjoying their life goes beyond words, but I tried to say it here anyway.

Not Surprised” arrives alongside a brilliant music video directed by A.F. Cortes.  He comments, “I wanted (and had to) approach this piece from a visceral and experimental perspective. After listening to the song, I created a dark and surreal film reflecting the track’s themes and mood, leaving my comfort zone and turning some of my processes upside down– literally.”  Cortes continues, “The overarching theme of the piece is a cycle of violence; this is my interpretation of the music, not necessarily the authors’. We live in a never-ending cycle of violence; humans are as good at creating as destroying. In the video, the hunted becomes the hunter and then is hunted again. But who wins?

WATCH THE A.F. CORTES-DIRECTED VIDEO FOR “NOT SURPRISED” BELOW VIA YOUTUBE:

From “You are the Beginning” onwards, the album continues its relentless assault with “Weaponized Grief,” a fevered mashup of Japanese D-beat and Boredoms’ deliberately mismatched sonic textures. There isn’t a moment to sift through the wreckage before the bands launch into “No,” a deliberate nod to the Japanese hardcore homage of Boris’s 2020 album NO. Respite finally comes with the glacial amplifier worship of “The Look is a Flame,” a Boris-penned song meant to evoke light and salvation over gloom and cruelty. Further heightened by the cosmic synth work of Randall Dunn and the groaning bass of Steve Moore, it retains the ominous timbre of the album while also hinting at the possibility of redemption. 

The album’s timbral pallete continues to broaden on the latter half of Bright New Disease, such as on the standout track “Narcotic Shadow.” Constructed around Berdan’s modular synth arpeggios, aided by Boris’s dark wave / new romantic-inspired vocals, and abetted by Greenberg’s warped studio manipulations, the song offers up a sleazy and woozy counterpoint to the unbridled rage of the album’s first half. Similarly, “A Man from the Earth” feels less centered on catharsis and more fixated on a gritty, buried-in-the-red spin on David Bowie’s glam years. But these deviations only serve to make the album closer and second single, “Not Surprised,” all the more bleak, anguished, and harrowing. The amps are on ten; the sparring drums collide and collapse; everything vibrates to the same gut-liquifying frequency. Much like the album opener, “Not Surprised” was written with its position on a setlist in mind. “I thought it would be appropriate for the last song on the album,” says Atsuo, “and I imagined that it would be just as cathartic if we played it at the end of the show as well.”

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Track list for digital

You are the Beginning

Weaponized Grief

No

The Look is a Flame

The Sinners of Hell (Jigoku)

Narcotic Shadow

A Man from the Earth

Endless Death Agony

Not Surprised

Track list for vinyl (side break after Angels in the Abyss) & CD

You are the Beginning

Weaponized Grief

No

The Look is a Flame

Angels in the Abyss (Abaddon)

Narcotic Shadow

A Man from the Earth

Endless Death Agony

Not Surprised

“On tour, we learned more about the depth of their musicality, which we felt was compatible with our own expression,”  Boris’s Atsuo and Takeshi say of their tour mates. “They are a band that can be described in many ways—punk, metal, industrial—but they truly excel because they are not locked into any style. They are always experimenting and innovating.” The feeling was mutual.

“Uniform have been longtime fans and admirers of Boris. Supporting them on tour was a dream come true,” says Uniform vocalist/electronics wrangler Michael Berdan. Guitarist and producer Ben Greenberg was equally excited by the opportunity to team up with Boris and shape the recording of Bright New Disease in his studio. “Wata is one of my favourite guitar players ever, so I’m very stoked we got two duelling solo tracks on this record,” Greenberg says, referring to the intertwined guitar leads on “Endless Death Agony.” This isn’t to say there wasn’t also a shared appreciation for certain classics, particularly when it came to Japanese hardcore. “The first time I met Atsuo he was wearing a Gastunk shirt, and Takeshi has schooled me harder on Burning Spirits than any fetishist westerner could ever hope for,” says Berdan.

Members of both Boris and Uniform talk about songs on Bright New Disease in the context of how they’ll play out in a live setting. Under normal circumstances, such considerations are a part of the writing process for any band with an active live presence. But considering that Bright New Disease was written and recorded in the darkest days of the pandemic, it frames the agitated and tumultuous spirit of the album in a new light. Yes, this is the sound of frustration, but it was founded on resilience. “In the end, it sounds like the crystalised essence of both bands at the heights of their creative abilities,” says Berdan. “It is a testament of friendship and hope in the face of a world on fire.”