Neurosis
Honor Found In Decay

Old age comes for everyone. It is the only thing certain we have left, the only inevitable one.

Old age is not just an advancement in age, but rather the acquisition of a new awareness and rediscovery, growth of the spirit.

Old age is also decline. Decay. And it is in decline that one finds one's honor. A medal of valor given for everything done in life, but now it is time to reckon with the time that, irreversibly, does not cease to advance. And to do so with head held high. Honorably, that is.

Even for Neurosis, it seems the time has come, and they know it better than we do.

For 25 years now they have been on the scene, singers of the apocalypse and human misfortune, of our scourge and the self-punishment that is due to us, that we deserve.

In twenty-five years they have traversed every path traced by man, unknowingly opening new ones for their (perhaps illegitimate) offspring who would soon pass that way, tracing their steps.

The urgent rush of that adolescence (innocence) that characterized the first two albums. "Pain Of Mind" and "The Word As Law," which have little to do with the later ones musically speaking, as well as conceptually. Innocent, as already mentioned, protected from the shadows of this accursed world they will only get to know in the future. In this world of shadows, we hide in the light. And so did they.

"Souls At Zero" already shows signs of instability due to self-awareness and awareness of what surrounds us. Neurosis, remaining true to the name they chose to carry. The obsession begins to take hold of them, helpless, no longer able to defend themselves, having left the protection of the light. The struggle with themselves begins.

"Enemy Of The Sun" pushes them into the abyss, where light can no longer reach them. The account of their private hell, claiming their souls, from which they cannot escape. Fire, ruin, agony, pain, helplessness in the face of this great Everything. The shadow has taken them and will not return them.

"Through Silver In Blood" is the end of things. Everything is sucked into the abyss, the abyss where they themselves ended up at their time. And the same abyss will be sucked into Nothing, the Nothing that constitutes eternity, the eternity made of shadows. That which we will be condemned to, where the light does not exist nor has it ever existed. Everything closes in flames, flames that burn cold, flames that do not illuminate but instead obscure. And our existence itself becomes non-existence.

"Times Of Grace" is the earthquake. That inner earthquake that brings back the light, even if only in glimpses. We are still buried under the rubble; now we must dig upwards. We must return to the light.

"A Sun That Never Sets" is that return to light. But it is a different light, no longer reassuring. The light of that sun which never rests is hostile. Just like the environment one has reached after digging.

The new world is inhospitable, the struggle for survival has begun.

And it is there that the instinct of man reveals itself in the purest way.

"The Eye Of Every Storm" is the inner desolation, that of the soul. But also of the external world.

The sun has, in the end, set. The light has disappeared again, leaving behind an empty sky. We continue to wander, but there seems to be no destination, just as there is no river to take us home. A step away from surrender...

"Given To The Rising" is the reaching of the source. The spirit did not give up, despite being left to wander in the desert, in a world that is the closest reincarnation of Death itself. It has ultimately transcended. Lights have pushed it into the reflection of a black hole, a psychic black hole that brought it to the Origin.

In the end, decline has arrived. And after all this, the journey to the source (At the well...) must be made with decorum.

This is "Honor Found In Decay." Facing the inexorability of time, after the torment of life, with honor. Scraping the tar from one's past life and letting it burn away.

But the shadows are returning, and they claim ownership of your soul. And you can only prepare yourself, to return to them. With dignity.

This too is "Honor Found In Decay," the ultimate dignity of Neurosis. Remaining faithful to the end, never bowing the head. Perhaps this record will not (qualitatively speaking) live up to past glory, but it is the most sincere expression of what this entity is now (and has been).

The torment is no more, the screams no longer express pain, but the simple awareness of being finished and having finished.

The music no longer scratches, it no longer hurts, despite its heaviness. Because it is heaviness due to weariness.

The sun has finally set, and with it its spokespersons.

It is the recognition of one's limits. It is life flashing before your eyes the moment before dying.

Because death is approaching.

But dignity and honor will not be abandoned.

Now we just have to raise the dawn and head toward it.