‘Given to the Rising’ by Neurosis [NR050]

For most people, Neurosis seem to be something of an acquired taste, and I would be no exception. Fortunately, it’s a taste that is well worth acquiring, and after persevering with their offbeat blend of experimental hardcore and doom-metal, they quickly became one of my all-time favourite bands. Their sound could be compared to a more extreme version of Tool, a band that has certainly taken a degree of inspiration from Neurosis (Tool’s psychedelic visual accompaniments were probably inspired by those pioneered by Neurosis). However, where Tool mine more philosophical and psychological territory, Neurosis add an edge of sublime terror and irrationalism that the more cerebral sound of Tool lacks. While the greatest black-metal evokes demonic entities engaged in total war against the armies of God, Neurosis call to mind some amoral Lovecraftian behemoth, older than God or Satan, emerging to enact its awful will upon the world.

So naturally, while stalking the aisles of my favourite record store (Sister Ray in central London), I jumped at the chance to pick up their latest full-length, ‘Given to the Rising’. With this latest release, Steve von Till and co. slightly step back from the comparatively mellow, post-rock-tinged metal that characterised ‘A Sun That Never Sets’ and ‘The Eye of Every Storm’ and towards the apocalyptic nightmares of ‘Enemy of the Sun’ and ‘Through Silver in Blood’. ‘Given…’ blasts with all the bleakness and brutality of these mid-90s albums, but retains the sense of space and melody learned on their more recent material. Production duties are once again handled by the (in)famous Steve Albini, whose masterful approach to the mixing desk captures a harsh yet organic sound that ties to the band to their hardcore-punk roots. After the crushing title track comes the appropriately named ‘Fear and Sickness’, a more up-tempo track (by their standards), built around a harmonic-minor riff that reminds me a little of The Doors’ ‘The End’. ‘Shadow’, is a highly ominous spoken-word track that showcases the bands esoteric lyrical approach without once succumbing to pretension. ‘Origin’ forms the album’s denouement, a superb closing number that clocks in at over 11 minutes, but doesn’t waste a second.

The trademark Neurotic sound has become something of a blueprint for various post-rock/sludge-metal crossover bands, with varying degrees of success – fortunately for Neurosis, none of these imitators have managed to even come close to matching their mentors, the worst of them sounding merely like generic Mogwai-clones who’ve splashed out on a cheap distortion pedal. The reason ultimately lies with the fact that Neurosis forged their sound from a variety of talented predecessors, while the newbies in the field have simply tried to copy this metallic alloy and failed in the process. With ‘Given to the Rising’ Neurosis show the newcomers how it’s done and take their place at the throne of atmospheric post-metal. Highly recommended.