Pink (Boris album)

Pink has large musical footing in metal, with doom,^[4][5] sludge,^[6] stoner,^[7] and thrash^[8] styles all seen throughout. However, true to Boris' eclectic nature, it also shows roots in ambient, hardcore,^[8] garage punk,^[9] garage rock,^[10][11] noise prog,^[12] dream pop, post-metal,^[13] and post-rock.^[6] Their "pensive", "poised" handling of shoegaze is seen as the record's strength.^[9][14] Loudwire saw a slight acid rock sound brought on by its "organic" lo-fi production.^[15]

Professional ratings

Original 2005/2006 releases
Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	80/100[16]
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[10]
Cokemachineglow	79%[17]
Drowned in Sound	8/10[18]
Exclaim!	(favorable)[19]
Neumu	8/10[20]
Now	4/5[21]
Pitchfork	8.7/10[22]
Spin	A[12]
Stylus Magazine	C[23]
Tiny Mix Tapes	[24]

Pink's original releases were greeted with generally positive reviews. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album has received an average score of 80, based on 13 reviews.^[16]

Awarding it a full five stars, AllMusic's Thom Jurek named it Boris' "most cohesive, adventurous, and "listenable" recording" to date.^[10] Pitchfork's Brandon Stosuy called it their "most melodic, conventionally structured, and aggressively addictive LP to date." He named them "2006's balls-out riff makers to beat."^[22] Giving it his site's fullest rating, Spin's Joe Gross called it "crazy [and] gorgeous", praising the band's ability to "flatten a club with their firepower."^[12] Neumu's Tom Ridge positively noted its appeal to both extreme metal and avant-rock fans while keeping an accessibility for curious listeners.^[20]

However, some critics were more reserved. Stylus' Stewart Voegtlin criticized the band's "infatuation with kitschy artistic jest" which "does little to empower their sound". Leaving the album "unimpressed", he dubbed it "neither a step in a [nearly] "right" direction nor a meaningful action altogether."^[23] Tiny Mix Tapes' Grant 'Gumshoe' Purdum dismissed it as "quite simply half-there." He labeled it "muddy as a bowl of bad split pea soup, and twice as hammy."^[24]

Professional ratings

2016 deluxe reissue
Review scores
Source	Rating
Consequence	A−[14]
The Line of Best Fit	9/10[11]
Record Collector	[25]
The Spill Magazine	[26]
Uncut	8/10[27]

Pink's 2016 reissue was met with acclaim. Applauding it as "groundbreaking", Consequence's Nina Corcoran claimed the album "holds up with contagious energy and genuinely mesmerizing atmosphere".^[14] The Line of Best Fit's Geoff Cowart felt the reissue spoke to how "fresh and amusingly prophetic" Pink remained.^[11]

"A masterpiece of modern metal",^[28] Pink is seen as a breakthrough for Boris,^[4] its musical diversity and accessibility both factoring into its applause.^[14] Treble called it "their most eclectic and most accessible" songs.^[29] Loudwire ranked it as one of stoner rock / metal's 11 best albums.^[15] Tiny Mix Tapes dubbed it "one of the most rewarding and exciting metal records" of the 2000s.^[30]

Nashville Scene distinguished it as "the album that made metal hip", helping heavy music reach more indie-inclined listeners outside of underground metal. This aspect helped future bands like Baroness, Pallbearer, and more find crossover success.^[5] Invisible Oranges credited it with instilling appreciation for "minimalistic yet heavy" sounds in metal fans. They dubbed Boris one of the first bands to fuse ambient, shoegaze, and sludge elements.^[31] To "lure in newcomers", melodic rock and shoegaze elements appear. Nina Corcoran of Consequence likened this aspect to a similarly stylized album, then-trio Deafheaven's Sunbather (2013). Like that record, Pink's accessibility has helped it be noted as one of few albums that "extend[s] with sincerity" to normally non-metal listeners.^[14] Bandcamp Daily recognized both the album and Boris' place in post-metal's history. Alongside 2005's Dronevil, Pink was given credit for speaking to their consistent embrace of the scene's spirit and vitality.^[13] Treble felt that Pink announced Boris as "the definitive post-metal band", if only due to their disloyalty to genre.^[29]

Several tracks have gone on to become fan favourites and critical hits, particularly "Farewell". Invisible Oranges' staff deemed the track "one of those rare convergences between a band's best-known song and its strongest." They even felt it "[eclipse] pretty much anything else in Boris' discography."^[32] Treble placed it among the essential songs in the shoegaze genre's history.^[33] In a similar list by BrooklynVegan, "Farewell" ranked as an essential track of the 2000s/'10s shoegaze and heavy music crossover.^[34] It would later be included on the soundtrack of Jim Jarmusch's 2009 film The Limits of Control, which Boris also scored.^[4] Treble wrote that "Your Name Part 2"'s "slow-burn charm" foresaw Baroness in the era of their album Yellow & Green (2012).^[29]

To commemorate its 10th anniversary, Boris embarked on a North American and European tour of the album. The tour involved 28 performances in various U.S. cities and two in Canada's Montreal and Toronto. Drone metal trio Earth accompanied the band for all U.S. dates, but sat out for Canada's two dates.^[35] The last two months of 2016 were devoted to 28 performances across Europe and the U.K.^{[citation needed]}

Clayton Purdom for Cokemachineglow named Pink "the best heavy metal record" of the 2000s, defending it against some of the band's fans' arguments. He deemed it "a language-and-rhetoric free artistic statement" that "shattered", "steamrolled", and "de-verb[ed]" any arguments.^[36]

The first disc of the CD release is identical to the Southern Lord CD release, and the first two discs of the LP release are identical to those of the previous LP release.

The LP version of this disc splits the track list between "Room Noise" and "Talisman".^[42]

Sourced from AllMusic's credits.^[10]

Boris

• Takeshi – vocals, bass, guitar
• Wata – guitar, echo, sound effects
• Atsuo – drums, percussion

Technical

• Boris – production
• Souichirou Nakamura – mixing, mastering

Artwork & design

• Fangs Anal Satan – artwork
• Stephen O'Malley – design (LP version)
• The Lord – A&R (reissue)
• Blake & Durer – artwork (reissue)
• P.C.B. – design (reissue)