Neurosis are one of those bands that have been on the periphery of my awareness, but that I have never delved into. I did see them in concert once. That was back in August of 2019 and Bell Witch was the opener. In fact, I went there to see Bell Witch, and was pleasantly surprised by Neurosis when I stuck around and watched half or so of their set on a school night.

But you know, I never see used Neurosis records in stores, and so I never really thought about them a lot. But then in March of this year, there was a flurry of activity on Facebook (I know, I know – social media is a hellhole with minimal utility. still...) because Neurosis released a new record, replacing one disgraced member with the guy from the band Isis. Suddenly, two acts that I was peripherally interested in had sort of combined and released a new record. So I went to BandCamp and gave it a listen.

My first response was, "Wow, this is really cool. They are doing interesting stuff and I want to listen more." So i bought the record (physical copy came months later) and put the MP3s on my phone. And I have been listening to this record a lot.

It starts with a just under a minute vocal collage called We Are Torn Wide Open where someone screams about isolation, despair, loss.

Then three guitars, bass, drums, and keys all tear into it with Mirror Deep, a loud, fast, hard rock tune with occasional growled vocals.

First Red Rays is eight and a half minutes and it flows in and out, like a post-rock tune, with loud parts and slow parts. About two thirds of the way in, the music calms for a minute and one of the vocalists sings in a way that really reminds me of Matt Talbot of Hum, specifically Hum's epic 2020 release Inlet. Amazing.

The whole record is great, following that sort of formula: hard songs with melodic parts, ebbing and flowing. The pain and fear parting to reveal beauty.

Other moments that I like include the keys in Seething and Scattered and the vocals which depart from the Cookie Monster growl into something bluesier (a la Wo Fat) on Untethered.

The last two songs on the record clock in at a combined length of 27:12, and ebb and flow in a myriad ways. In the Waiting Hours and Last Light are simply wonderfully done. The music pulls in Sonic Youth, Hum, Yob, Sabbath, even The Church.

There is a moment, about 10 minutes into Last Light where the drums bring in a thick, tribal riff as the bassist channels Kilbey's work on The Hypnogogue as the keys dance around. Then the guitar comes in, a clean beautiful riff as voices yowl and it grows more forceful again. I listen to this stretch of music and I think that I have heard dozens of post-rock bands try to capture that sort of transition and fail, but Neurosis pull it off.

It's a heck of an achievement, and I now I really need to go back and dig through the Neurosis catalog.