Style: Tribal influenced post-metal/hardcore with touches of acoustic and ambient
Primary Emotions/Themes: The primal spirit of the earth has spoken through this music
Thoughts: Do perfect albums exist? I tend to think no. There is almost always something to nit pick about any album, no matter how small. One song along the way may have an awkward transition, some songs may be too long, maybe the album isn't long enough. Who knows... but there is almost always something... except here... Times of Grace... I can't find fault in.
From the very first notes of Suspended in Light to the last tones of The Road to Sovereignty there is not a single thing that I would change about this album. Longer albums can sometimes be a deterrent for me. My gold standard is eight tracks clocking in at forty five minutes. Neurosis have this one coming in well over an hour long and the only thing I want is more.
Long songs are something that I truly appreciate when done correctly, but when they overstay their welcome they become an easy skip. No such thing here. After taking out the intro and the outro track the average song length is right around seven minutes long. These songs are so well paced and so well composed that they could go on for double the length and still draw near the unachievable goal of perfection.
Songs that area overtly heavy can often be brutish in nature and never fulfill the promise of the genre of metal. So many bands like to pummel the listener into the ground with no real thought or care put into the riff except for the fact that its incomprehensibly heavy. Not so here. The Doorway is perhaps one of the heaviest songs in my entire collection, but it channels that heaviness to drive the song towards an ultimate goal rather than to rest on the fact that it's heavy. The heaviness is a tool that Neurosis use as one of many rather than THE singular component of the songs.
Hardcore vocals are often a pretty big turn off for me. The shouts don't do much for me, they lack emotion other than rage. Ultimately they sound one dimensional and it's tough to make it through an entire album like that. Neurosis tun this on it's head. Both Steve and Scott share vocal duties with some additional grunts from Dave every down and then. They channel sorrow, rage, joy, regret, and a multitude of other emotions even though they are based in the hardcore shout. It's incredible.
I was asked a few weeks ago by a friend where the best place to start with Neurosis was. A single song that would give them an idea of where the band sound was. I gave them a link to Under the Surface. This song encapsulates everything that makes Neurosis, Neurosis.
It starts out with a tribal drum beat that Jason and Steve compliment each other on. Behind them is some layered feedback that is somehow manipulated to become musical along with an accompanying bass riff. When the guitars and vocals come in the song fleshes out just a bit more to show some semblance of a normal song. Throughout all of this the drums keep going, they are ever present. Scott and Dave belt out words regarding the state of our natural order. This is the basis of the first section of the song. Even though it is not overtly heavy, the overwhelming presence of the drums and building tension makes it feel immense.
When the full band finally does come in the song goes from building tension to this incredible release, it slows down, the tribal drums are dropped for a more traditional bass/snare beat and some brass plays over the massive guitar riff that the band has going. The band continues to develop this concept for a short amount of time before they drop everything... and near silence overtakes the song.
The only thing that can be heard for nearly two minutes is the quiet tones of Noah manipulating his electronics produce. Every now and then Jason will beat the floor tom to accentuate a cycle of the noise, but that's it. It's tranquility incarnate, it's true peace.
The band pierces the silence by combining everything that has happened to this point by bringing back the tribal drums with the massive riff from right before the ambient moments of the song. As the song continues we hear the whole band yell "Your shell is hollow! So. Am. I." God that's powerful.
This song is the microcosm known as Neurosis summed up in one song. They can rage, they can make you contemplate, they can bring peace, they can destroy it as well. This is the purity of the music that Neurosis bring, this is their true art.
The rest of the album would require as much of a description as Under the Surface, so I'm going to forgo that for the remainder of this summary. The album maintains a masterwork level of quality throughout all of its sixty eight minute length and not a single moment is worth skipping. There is an old saying that perfection is the enemy of good, and yes while this is not technically perfect, or as polished as it could be... none of that matters. This is a perfect album for me... no one else. It meets every standard that I have set out in my evaluations and surpassed them all. This is where the perfect and the good meet.
Written March 27th 2024
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