Neurosis
Times OF Grace

THE REVIEW

With this album, the transition of the Californian group begins from the strongly hardcore sounds of their beginnings and the contaminations of "Enemy Of The Sun" to a powerful and transforming sonic magma that contemplates various influences, breaking the boundaries of "genres" and creating an absolutely unique, desperate style.

Noah Landis' keyboards and effects become more prominent, especially in the introductions of the tracks (End Of The Harvest), creating soundscapes of apparent peace before the shredded guitars and the three voices of Steve Von Till, Aaron North, and Scott Kelly plunge everything back into the relentless apocalypse.

The masterpiece track of the work is "Under The Surface", a percussive crescendo ride, an arcane ritual tinged with the fire of Von Till's voice: undoubtedly their flagship live piece, engaging Kelly inexorably on the timpani for the eight-plus minutes of the track.
"The Last You'll Know" is built on a few very slow and devastating chords, repeated obsessively under a mantra of furious screams, then finding a strange form of peace in the distorted and disturbing effects of Landis' keyboard... A few moments of respite and the chords progress towards the final "Big Crunch": screams, ferocity, massacred and hyper-violent notes.
"Descent" is a proud and incisive track where a bagpipe accompanies Jason Roeder's drums, amidst heart-wrenching sample raids, like the march of an army of the dead, voices of the dead returning from past defeats.
"Away" glimpses the further future evolutions of the group: a "song" in the classic sense of the term, which would not look out of place in the respective solo albums of Von Till and Scott Kelly; but again the quiet desperation is just a whisper before the liberating roar, which seals the possibility of joy in another world.

A transitional album, full of pathos, pain, and humanity. "Grace", album by Tribes Of Neurot, or the same Neurosis in electronic and experimental garb, if listened to simultaneously with this "Times Of Grace" creates an absolutely original and unsettling third work. Another step towards the unveiling of what is darkest and unconfessable hidden in the human soul. A must-have.