Boris become the apocalypse on “Beyond Good and Evil”
W’s second single was written from the perspective of a mushroom cloud.
Heavy rock gods Boris will release W, their 27th studio album in 26th years as a band — not to mention at least 15 collaborative releases with other groups — this Friday, January 21, via Sacred Bones. Today, the Tokyo trio of Wata, Atsuo, and Takeshi shared its dazzling second single, "Beyond Good and Evil," along with a a gorgeous music video directed by YUTARO of Art Love Music.
Where lead single "Drowning by Numbers" is a tense, seething track that threatens to explode into hellacious noise but never does, "Beyond Good and Evil" smolders slowly until, halfway through, it combusts into a roaring fire of blissful guitar, crackling with reverb. Its visual treatment — which finds Wata standing alone in an abandoned house where cobwebs crowd the corners and weeds grow up through the floorboards as the camera zooms slowly out to reveal the dense forest that surrounds the crumbling edifice — is a vision of a post-moral, post-human world. More specifically, according to the band, it's the scene of an apocalypse Japan has already witnessed.
"There is a vast magnitude in a huge mushroom cloud and in decaying ruins," they write. "We feel both the sadness and beauty of these things at the same time; that is who we are. This video was made from the perspective of a mushroom cloud. [W] focuses on Wata’s vocals — and she is from HIROSHIMA.”
Watch the video, and view W's tracklist, below.
W tracklist
1. I Want to Go to the Side Where You Can Touch…
2. Icelina
3. Drowning by Numbers
4. Invitation
5. The Fallen
6. Beyond Good and Evil
7. Old Projector
8. You Will Know (Ohayo Version)
9. Jozan