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A sonic magma that threatens from the depths, this is the latest album from Los Angeles-based Neurosis; having detached themselves from more violent and extreme sounds, they have arrived at a genre-non-genre that boasts countless apostles in the contemporary post-hardcore scene.
The work opens with the pulsation of "Burn" which grows until it explodes into the liberating scream of Steve Von Till, while the keyboard paints unimaginable landscapes with samples that seem taken from the polar ice caps breaking away and crashing against one another. Fire and ice together pass the baton to "No River To Take Me Home", a truly splendid song that is illuminated by authentic and unsettling suffering, as if it had the entire soul of a stretched and distorted blues, enriched by the hieratic and powerful voice of Scott Kelly.
"The Eye Of Every Storm" begins where we expect it to: in the calm of the cyclone's eye, as if the pain felt so far subsides for a moment, allowing us to breathe; but always, relentlessly, a tension created by the keyboards and the nerve-wracking anticipation that something will explode prevents us from relaxing and forgetting. This track, perhaps the most successful of the entire album, has a desolate center where the pulsations of the sun and the sound of the wind give an idea of how much Neurosis have worked on the concept of calm-after-apocalypse.
"Left To Wander" takes the wheel and throws us headlong into the tornado from the desert; then calm takes over again, while a faint voice warns us that the light has left the world and spirits have risen like smoke along with the corpses. Tension and horror take turns while the wind continues to blow over exposed bones, guitar riffs expand more and more, turning into a march from Judgment Day.
Imagine watching a sunset among skyscraper skeletons dripping with sand, and you will have "Shelter": here a trumpet sounds the Silence and then the maddened scream of the last soldier breaks through the prayer, again desolation and anger win over everything and everyone.
"A Season In The Sky" has the drive and depth of a Muezzin's chant in the morning fog; again the desert and the fire of oil wells burning in the distance, explosions filling the darkness while waiting to be killed by a sniper, bombs, or hunger. The clouds continue to gather and the wind grows stronger, wounds can no longer be healed, and so one inflicts further injury on oneself and cries, praying for rain.
"Bridges" is the most technological piece of the work, casting electronic effects and interferences over a martial rhythmic carpet, while the singing remains an intimate and scratched howl, like a patient writhing under the scalpels of robotic surgeons unaware of his suffering. The explosion comes at the end, cathartic, as if the entire structure of consciousness collapses into madness.
"I Can See You" is the final confiteor: a bitter song of love and loss in which Scott Kelly first whispers sweetly and then growls the need to see loved ones again, after all this suffering and desolation. The strings blend with the rest, making the conclusion of an album decidedly not for everyone, but one that touches very deep chords; as if Neurosis had entered a phase that transcends every genre and pre-established "scheme" to create timeless music.
To purchase and savor, with attention and caution.
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