With Bossk set to turn 20 in 2026 and intending to mark the occasion with a new album and a studio debut for vocalist Simon Wright, the release of .4 sees the band pensively gazing into the rear view mirror of their riff wagon. There are re-imagined versions of songs, previously unheard tracks from the vault, and guest appearances aplenty here. That said, .4 is being billed as an album, so we’ll treat it as such.
Things get off to a suitably brave start, with opening track Kobe X Pijn being, as the name suggests, instead a reworked version of their 2016 track performed by fellow Brits Pijn. It’s fascinating to hear a familiar song approached by different minds, and by and large it’s pulled off very well. The addition of strings is a welcome replacement for the dated faux-Battles guitar loops of the original, and Pijn continue to flex throughout the 6-and-a-half minutes, turning the awkwardly composed original into a much more satisfying musical journey. Unfortunately, the overall impression we get is of Pijn doing their best while hamstrung by the much narrower musical breadth of a Bossk song, so while it’s a lovely ride, it leaves us wanting to go and listen to the guest artist rather than continue with .4.
Bossk themselves swagger into action on second track Truth II, a re-imagined track from the early days inspired by a vocal cover uploaded to Instagram by Sheenagh Murray. The journey from Instagram cover to full blown collaboration with the artist is an incredibly cool story to tell, and a wonderful gesture of mutual support and love between artists and fans. The track itself doesn’t have an awful lot to offer outside of stock “post with vocals” tropes and a few flourishes of electronica to accompany the signature lumbering Bossk rhythm section, and the muddy guitars and flat production don’t help matters, but for the hardcore fans, it’s a fascinating alternate reality version of a deep cut that comes with its own story to tell.
Events Occur In Real Time is billed as the centrepiece of the record, and serves as a swan song to former vocalist Sam Marsh following his departure from the band to the USA. With the addition of haunting trumpet lines, this is vintage Bossk at their most theatrical and crushing, and once the customary build-up gives way to the post-metal Supreme Court mandated wall of sound, we’re reminded that this is a band who are at their best with a vocalist to offer focus to their instrumental meandering. Marsh’s signature barbed-wire roar gives the song direction and urgency, and though it’s used sparsely, it elevates the track far beyond anything else we’ve heard thus far. The riffs hit harder when they have something to work around, and the extra textures offered by trumpet and vocals are welcome ear candy.
With the rest of the album largely instrumental, we find our interest waning outside of the real show pieces – unfinished songs should perhaps stay forgotten, and remixes that sound like a counterfeit Bossk found on LimeWire circa 2006 won’t appeal to anyone above sea level on the superfan iceberg. This band have come a long way since their humble beginnings, and perhaps the biggest take home from .4 is that there are surely better things to come in the future.
The true highlight of this album comes with the back-to-back interpretations of The Reverie by Maybeshewill and Crown Lands. The former offer up a real curveball – in a move that surely nobody saw coming, Maybeshewill play a post-metal song, but it’s on a piano. It’s a bold move Cotton, let’s see where it takes them. On its own, this is a perfectly pleasant listen, but it’s so achingly predictable that it really just serves as an intro track for a version of The Reverie which finds Canadian prog-psych duo Crown Lands giving us something we never thought we needed: a full blown Bossk song with all the pummelling post-metal we’ve come to expect, but elevated by beautifully composed synth and percussion accompaniment. Vintage synths blanket us in comforting analogue warmth, setting a gorgeous nostalgic haze over the moments of peace in the track, before the guitars exquisitely weave their way back into the neon-tinged soundscape and remind us we’re still in for a cathartic blast of riffage before too long. This is a collaboration that must rank up there with the best in the genre, a moment of transcendence that stretches beyond 9 minutes without ever outstaying its welcome.
Overall, it’s difficult to recommend .4 as a front-to-back album experience. Opening a record with someone else playing one of your songs is an all-time power move, and there are touches of pure brilliance on offer here, but we can’t help but feel that .4 is only really here to fill the gap between 2021’s Migration and what’s next to come. Nobody wants to see a gap on a CV, but we’d trade .4 for a year’s less wait for a full-length in a heartbeat.