Boris with Michio Kurihara - Rainbow

If the idea of “Japanese Psychedelic Rock Underground” doesn’t blow your mind completely, then allow the Grandfather of the Japanese Psychedelic Rock Underground’s (Michio Kurihara) collaboration with that country’s premier Japanese Psychedelic Rock Underground band (Boris) trigger your synapses into a state of otherworldliness.
While Boris’ Pink, their stunning breakthrough from last year, actually added a few novel elements to the genre, the results of the pair’s collaboration (Rainbow) doesn’t soar to the same places.
At the same time, the areas that they do manage to reach are pretty far out.
The title track takes a slow-paced rhythm and gentle electric guitar for a redundant five minutes, allowing a knarly, fuzzed-out guitar solo to become the song’s centerpiece.
“Starship Narrator” puts the drum kit high up in the mix, while a fuzzed drone guitar becomes the song’s foundation. Then, you guessed it, another destroyed ’n frazzled sounding guitar solo comes in to knock the whole fucking thing to its knees.
Fans of The Bevis Frond and Flying Saucer Attack should really find comfort in Rainbow’s explorations, which usually follow the aforementioned formula (slow, marauding songs with an intensely charged guitar solo) while the occasional softer pieces follow the same territories as latter-day Comets On Fire. At no time does the language barrier (all songs are sung in Japanese) become an issue or distraction; this is, after all, an album fueled entirely on vibe and headspace, to the point where the instruments are the main form of communication anyway.
But it can be forgettable, much like the also-ran bands that Boris and Kurihara try to emulate. Sure, it’s a shame that a band like Blue Cheer never got their dues (thanks, mostly, to their own internal problems), but there’s something pretty cool about running into those 60’s relics for the first time and discovering something that most people would have no idea about. Which may be the exact thing that Rainbow is trying to accomplish anyway: a modern-day cult band completely devoted to the acid freakouts of their own record collection.
If that’s the case, then mission accomplished