Neurosis: Given To The Rising

By: Chris Pacifico

You’ve gotta tip your hats to Neurosis. Most influential, long running metal bands [22 years and counting in Neurosis’ case] could be expected to cut the crappiest of albums after all these years, lucky to have maybe two of their original members still in the band. But these Oakland warriors – who predate Tool in igniting the spark for the so called 21st century “thinking man’s” metal movement – prove that metal is an outlet that many “phans” are flocking to these days.

Live shows by Neurosis and their peers feature complex, improvised musicianship that wows the most eclectic audiences. It’s not just metal heads and hipsters anymore but anyone tired of the same old cookie cutter sewage most granola jam bands and never-ending jamtronica acts squeeze out. Acts like Neurosis, Mastodon and Isis are why you see the same kids at their gigs that jump into the chillum circles at MMW and Umphrey’s shows.

Neurosis truly lives up to their name on their ninth long player, Given To The Rising (Neurot Recordings). The sweeping gusts of ambience are truly the stuff paranoia is made of, interwoven with Steve Von Till’s nictitating guitar riffs that morph into heady globs of sludgy pummeling, all leading up to singer Scott Kelly’s shot-to-shit, free-flowing, beefy vocals.

Somehow Rising manages to come in at a whole seventy minutes in length but nary is a single note played in vein. Noah Landis’ keyboards seep in like vapors of tension on the track’s buildups and bridges. The record’s austere psychedelic and post-rock fueled friction has led Neurosis to the nexus of heavy music, where they have the ability to completely alter what it will be for future generations.

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