''Attention Please'' is the seventeenth studio album by the Japanese experimental band Boris. The album was released on May 24, 2011, through the label

Sargent House Sargent House is an American management company and record label based in Los Angeles. It was founded in June 2006 by Cathy Pellow, who is a music video commissioner for Atlantic Records and also owns a music video production company called Ref ...

. Its original release date was April 26, but this was pushed back. The album features vocals in every track sung by Wata. ''Attention Please'' marks a departure from the '' Heavy Rocks'' sound, returning to the

dream pop Dream pop (also typeset as dreampop) is a subgenre of alternative rock and neo-psychedelia that emphasizes atmosphere and sonic texture as much as pop melody. Common characteristics include breathy vocals, dense productions, and effects such as ...

sound explored on '' New Album'', but this time, it has elements from

noise pop Noise pop is a subgenre of alternative and indie rock that developed in the mid-1980s in the United Kingdom and United States. It is defined by its mixture of dissonant noise or feedback with the songcraft more often found in pop music. Shoegazi ...

and

alternative rock Alternative rock, or alt-rock, is a category of rock music that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1970s and became widely popular in the 1990s. "Alternative" refers to the genre's distinction from Popular culture, mainstre ...

, This is their release without announcement. The album was released on the same day and label as '' Heavy Rocks'', with which it shares the song title "Aileron." The album features the tracks "Party Boy", "

Hope Hope is an optimistic state of mind that is based on an expectation of positive outcomes with respect to events and circumstances in one's life or the world at large. As a verb, its definitions include: "expect with confidence" and "to cherish ...

", Les Paul Custom '86" and "Spoon" from '' New Album'' in altered forms. "Party Boy" and "Les Paul Custom '86" additionally have third versions on the Japanese ''New Album'' vinyl release. A version of "Tokyo Wonder Land" was previously released on the '' Golden Dance Classics'' split release with 9dw. Initial track list information included "16:47:52" (previously available on ''

Japanese Heavy Rock Hits ''Japanese Heavy Rock Hits'' is a collection of singles by the Japanese experimental band Boris. Volume 1 was released on September 14, 2009 through the label Southern Lord Records; the successive volumes followed one per month afterward. Artwo ...

'') as track 6, but the official preorder revealed it is replaced by "You." On February 25, the label released the track "

" as the only single from the album. On May 16, NPR Music streamed ''Attention Please'' in its entirety.

Composition

Musically, ''Attention Please'' consists of

electropop Electropop is a hybrid music genre combining elements of electronic and pop genres. Writer Hollin Jones has described it as a variant of synth-pop with heavy emphasis on its electronic sound. The genre was developed in the 1980s and saw a re ...

shoegaze Shoegaze (originally called shoegazing and sometimes conflated with "dream pop") is a subgenre of indie and alternative rock characterized by its ethereal mixture of obscured vocals, guitar distortion and effects, feedback, and overwhelming volu ...

, and

pop metal Pop metal (sometimes conflated with or used interchangeably with glam metal) is an umbrella term for commercial heavy metal and hard rock styles which feature prominent pop music elements such as catchy hooks and anthemic choruses. It became ...

styles. It also takes on the edge of

post-punk Post-punk (originally called new musick) is a broad genre of punk music that emerged in the late 1970s as musicians departed from punk's traditional elements and raw simplicity, instead adopting a variety of avant-garde sensibilities and non-roc ...

, with the "angular" style influencing Wata's guitar work.

Critical reception

''Attention Please'' was met with "generally favorable" reviews from critics. At

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, which assigns a weighted average rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, this release received an

average In ordinary language, an average is a single number taken as representative of a list of numbers, usually the sum of the numbers divided by how many numbers are in the list (the arithmetic mean). For example, the average of the numbers 2, 3, 4, 7, ...

score of 72 based on 20 reviews. In a review for

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...

, critic reviewer Thom Jurek wrote: "''Attention Please'' comes as a very noteworthy and distinctive album in Boris' large and labyrinthine catalog, whether one likes it or not. It is their first to feature vocals on all tracks by lead guitarist Wata. The music is nocturnal, relatively slinky, and very atmospheric."

Track listing

Credits

* Takeshi * Wata – Vocals * Atsuo * Michio Kurihara * Soichiro Nakamura * Eiji Hashizume

References

{{Authority control 2011 albums Boris (band) albums