In a music world where mystique and a sense of the unknown seems virtually unattainable, the value of a band like Neurosis, where each release still feels like an event, is incalculable. Over thirty years, the band have remained staunchly committed to developing their music as an ever-evolving artwork, something to which last year’s astonishing ‘strength and vision’ box set readily attested, and ‘Fires within fires’ is no exception. A beautifully organic record, Neurosis have crafted five tracks that explore a sonic landscape so alien it evokes the recently released images of Mars: barren and forbidding, yet somehow enticing thanks to the human desire to push ever further beyond accepted boundaries of time and space. It is a grand, majestic record from a band who operate in a field of one and it proves to be the most absorbing, intense listen you’re likely to find this year.
The record opens with the slow, stately march of ‘Bending Light’. A vast, atmospheric piece of music that seems to pulse in the half-light, it whispers quietly one moment only to explode into a thousand points of light the next, huge, gut-scraping riffs scarring the landscape as arcing feedback and pounding drums swirl around. It is a beautiful yet bruising opener and the carefully crafted dynamic sets the tone for the album. ‘A shadow memory’ opens as a quiet guitar figure emerges from a haze of noise and distortion. It is not long before a corroded riff appears on the horizon above which Scott Kelly’s increasingly tortured voice rings out. Like the black clad harbinger of the apocalypse, Scott resembles nothing so much as a black-clad figure possessed of a Tom Waits growl and dust-streaked boot with worn-down heels and his devastating vocals have an earthen gravitas that makes it impossible to look away. Hypnotic and intense, the way the music builds is both familiar as Neurosis and yet somehow wider in scope than the dark, claustrophobic tones of ‘Honor found in decay’ and it’s clear that Neurosis have evolved their sound once again. This is even more the case as a twin vocal cascades over the brutal ‘Fire is the end lesson’, a piece of music that is rooted in Neurosis’ modern, Avant leanings and yet possessed of a vitriolic punk fury that nods slightly to their crust past. As the song builds so new elements appear forcing the music away from its crashing, nihilistic opening toward something altogether more ethereal and beautiful, although the music is no less intense for the tonal shift and steadily veers back into the abyss as the track progresses toward its cataclysmic conclusion.
Arguably the album’s most elegiac piece, ‘Broken Ground’ sees the folk-driven drones of Steve Von Till’s Harvestman project given room to breathe and shimmer in the flickering firelight only to be rent asunder by the roar of a wall of huge, flaming guitars. It’s a seismic upheaval and the band employ it to maximum effect across the track, before allowing it to slowly unravel in front of the listener ending with the vocals seemingly delivered underwater as the narrator slowly slips beneath the surface of an oily lake and out of view. The album reaches an end with the lengthy ‘reach’, an epic mood piece that opens with a phased guitar that gutters like a dying candle. Dark and initially resigned, ‘reach’ explores a rural, folk vibe that builds into a terrifying display of violent defiance as guitars soar overhead like drones, the artillery of Jason Roeder’s drums shakes the ground and, underneath it all, Noah Landis’ dense atmospheric flourishes pock the landscape. It’s a ferocious conclusion to the album which leaves the listener isolated and alone on a barren landscape burned clean by the cleansing fire unleashed by the band.
With five tracks weighing in at forty minutes, ‘Fires within fires’ is a densely plotted album that explores a great deal of sonic territory over the course of its run time. There’s greater depth here than on ‘Honor found in decay’ and although the album offers nods to the band’s illustrious past, it also keeps a wary eye upon an uncertain future. To suggest that it is Neurosis’ masterpiece is, perhaps, an overstatement; but that is more of a reflection upon the vast strength of the band’s back catalogue than a concern over the longevity of this magnificent record. Regardless, ‘Fires within fires’ certainly is an incredibly strong addition to a body of work that, whilst challenging and even extreme on occasion, is both cohesive and evolutionary, and the band remain explorers in sonic territory that is rarely trod. Darkly evocative, ‘Fires within fires’ is an album that stokes the imagination and serves as the soundtrack to those dark nights of the soul where sleep fails to come. 9
