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Released on September 23, 2016 via Neurot Recordings
There comes a point in the life of certain bands when their mythology reaches a kind of apotheosis, when their unique edifice of artistry solidifies into the iconic, when they become an entire genre unto themselves. They seem to descend as though from nowhere; monolithic, mysterious, inspiring. They make the monkeys jump and scream, wield clubs, build spaceships.
Neurosis are one such band; beautiful, angular, obsidian, here they come again with their 11th studio album Fires Within Fires and, my God, it’s full of stars.
We kick off with ‘Bending Light’, its stately and ponderously heavy opening giving way to a cracked and thoughtful vocals which begin the tale of the album. The monumental and elemental lyrical imagery is designed to illustrate the inexhaustable vistas of the psyche and the internal struggles of the soul. The narrator of these songs is a kind of visionary or pilgrim whose landscape is transformed into a record of his fight for expression, every footfall covered over with dust, his voice dying away in the void. The tone of the vocals – from gruff contemplation through raw protestation ascending to a celebratory and incendiary rage – seem to be the outpourings of one who comes to terms with and even revels in his fate.
‘Fire Is The End Lesson’ is both relentlessly intense and probingly philosophical. It further elucidates a fundamental aspect in the project of Neurosis: the conquering of the self and subsequent transcendence in the face of a universe that may actually be actively hostile to the individual and their desires. It is against such a backdrop that Neurosis attempt to carve out their own ground, even if that ground is the windblown sands of Ozymandias, they accept this and stubbornly proceed: plumbing deeper wells, scaling the cliffs to higher plains. They stretch the artistic soul across numerous and disparate dimensions. The music reflects this: vaulting in its dynamic range from the crushing, thunderous and brutal to the delicate, meditative and poetic.
Implicit in this fidelity to the complete human experience is the acceptance of the darkness within man, the shadow-self, and the way it co-exists with more noble and aspirational qualities like a nest of serpents coiling around and swallowing each other. The aggression in the music is catharsis, aggression sublimed into something transcendent, aggression as beauty, aggression with wings. This is exemplified in ‘Broken Ground’ as the album approaches its conclusion and things take a deeply reflective turn, only to erupt once more with unsuppressable heaviness, the inevitable clash between the rational and the emotional.
The album concludes with the stunning track ‘Reach’ a delicate and expansive beast at once beautiful and bleak; the sun setting in the desert. The last word is literally given to the voice crying alone in the emptiness, ‘reach’ it says, performing itself in the act of aspiration, the desire for connection, and the will to extend its mortal self beyond the void.
Oooffft. It’s some heavy shit.
In the kingdom of post-metal there dwell a triune of warchief gods. Isis, sadly now deceased, Cult of Luna vying aggressively for the throne, but all ruled indisputably by Neurosis. Partly by right of the firstborn, partly due to having the most depth and soul. They continue to tunnel through their own particular vision, drilling away through the core of their creative soul: 30 years, 11 records, endless skins grown and shed, Fires Within Fires, death and rebirth in the sonic realm.
Fires Within Fires will be released through Neurot Recordings on September 23rd 2016.
