Neurosis - Given To The Rising

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Neurosis - Given To The Rising

Music

Written by Gautham Khandige

Saturday, 17 November 2007 01:29

Since the release of Through Silver In Blood, Neurosis has steadily become one of the most influential bands in extreme metal. Their influence has spread beyond the post-metal sub-genre and the countless Neurosis clones that they spawned to influencing black and death metal bands. Admittedly, the last couple of albums has seen the band slow down a bit and experiment with slightly calmer structures and while the last album, 2004's The Eye Of Every Storm was terrific in its own right, it didn’t really display the visceral intensity of the band’s earlier work. Given To The Rising is the band’s eighth full length recording and was released earlier this year.

Right from the start of this album you get the feeling that Neurosis is onto something special here. As the title song rumbles out of the speakers with its vintage Neurosis riff, the band yet again prove that there’s nobody who can even come close when it comes to creating that dense wall of sound. To The Wind feels like the band was paying close attention to Isis’ last album In The Absence Of Truth, as a calm soft guitar part starts proceedings before the song transforms into another crawling, lurching behemoth in true Neurosis fashion. At The End Of The Road is another terrific song starting off almost ambient like before the dense riffing, thunderous drumming and Kelly’s big man bawling vocal style come together to create another crushing experience.

Shadow is a short ambient piece with spoken word narration that allows the listener to catch his breath and breaks up the claustrophobic density that was created by the ending of At The End Of The Road and the cold riffing of the following song Hidden Faces. Water Is Not Enough is probably the most accessible song on the album with an opening riff that’s as traditionally metal as Neurosis have gotten to playing in a while although the song does progress into a Melvins kind of groove. The album closes with Origin and while I won’t even bother to describe this song I have to say that it’s worth the price of this album on it’s own. Vintage Neurosis and an absolute classic song.

What elevates the songwriting on this album is the dynamics. The interplay between the thunderously heavy and the almost gentle ambience all topped up by Scott Kelly’s tortured vocals hasn’t sounded this good in a long while. It is a bit pointless to go through each song (although I did it anyway), suffice to say that there are no individual highlights here. Every song on Given To The Rising is there for a reason and like the band’s best works, the songs all come together to create a sonic experience that is simply unmatched. I also have to mention the band’s use of electronics. It’s subtle and often hiding beneath the surface but is present on every song and does a tremendous job of enhancing the atmosphere of this album. Four years after their last album, after creating a new genre almost single handedly, with that genre, post-metal starting to become the new trend, and bands like Isis flirting with mainstream acceptance, this was the album that Neurosis had to make. There isn’t anything here that’s new for the band but it’s like they distilled the finest essence of everything that they’ve done in a recording career spanning twenty years and then used it to write Given To The Rising.

If you’ve never heard Neurosis before, then this is the perfect place to start as Given To The Rising displays the many facets of this incredible band. For the long time fan of this band, Given To The Rising is simply validation of the fact that Neurosis are still the undisputed masters of this style.

Label - Neurot

Year Of Release - 2007

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Our valuable member Gautham Khandige has been with us since Monday, 11 June 2007.

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