Neurosis are frankly exhausting to listen to. This is no slight or putdown, just a statement of fact, sort of like how exercising is good for your body but maybe if you only do it once a year you’re going to puff yourself out into oblivion. They require patience, benefit of the doubt and effort on the part of the listener – if you’re not on board, there’s little to comfort or convert you otherwise. This makes the band very difficult to write about too, on my part – from my own experience, I am a man who is never lost for words about music (FYI – I also shadow as a massive dickhead), but this entire article has been a struggle from conception to execution. Of course, like watching a child grow or perhaps sliding out a painless yet fully formed turtle head, there are results. I’ve decided to focus on one particular album for this, and possibly the one not expected, for personal reasons and for reasons that will hopefully provide a clear narrative and point.
Essentially, Times of Grace/Grace is actually punk as fuck and more than anything, even beyond their humble beginnings as a hardcore band, really shows the ethos and delivery that pervades a band that could conceivably be a tattoo on a fat guy’s balding asshole next to a little shredding Dimebag. This is not a punk album as in ‘three chord bangers’ or ‘Swedish men fluffing each other’s penises’ while reading Karl Marx’ or any other lark: this is cerebral punk that doubles as action sludge. Listened to separately, you have a very good continuation of the formula discovered in Souls at Zero and nurtured through Enemy of the Sun and Through Silver in Blood and a moderately listenable dark ambient album that isn’t interesting or creepy enough to warrant re-listening. Taken together however – you have a marvelous piece of work.
Syncing music together was not a new concept, even within physical mediums – Charles Ives had his two marching bands on a piece of parchment and the Flips had their four compact discs, in which three were very useable as Frisbees. What stands out though is how cohesive this makes the final product, for both simultaneously makes the atmosphere tenser, the depths lower and the onslaught as savage as possible. Thanks must be given to Steve Albini also, for this was his first record with the band behind the decks, and his nuance towards capturing avalanches of sound marked not only a fruitful working relationship but something of a distillation of intent. For all of their wont being the proverbial soundtrack to a life of a Suicide Girl, what makes Neurosis still such an interesting and important band is their commitment to the bigger picture and their work as a whole, rather than digestible parts – fucking anathema when you can press skip on an iPod quicker than your brain can process the command to do so.
What also sets Neurosis apart is their devotion to exploring American music, as they are as much influenced by Swans as by Hank Williams. While Swans is all fragility disguised by force, nobody could discount ‘My Bucket’s Got a Hole in it’ as nothing but despair – Neurosis love to use their personal pronouns too, to at once distract the listener from the shouting but to also take notice of the whispers in between. This is also seen with the folk leanings of the band’s solo careers, because when you strip the artifice of gigantic Matamps you still have yearning. It’s similar to the experience of reading Cormac McCarthy, a distinctive American voice, separated by the fact that also he may had a novel written without working comma or period keys that is about a guy who fucks corpses in a cave, that novel also functions as a study in loneliness. Basically, if you can have a riff in B Minor and a bagpipe quoting ‘Amazing Grace’ exist within the same work, you are working on a higher plain.
This also works as a punk record – if you remove all the Hot Topic aspects of Punk in capitals, you have rebellion, right? As in, rebelling against the status quo, perhaps not actually rockin’ all over the world but maybe rockin’ in some way against the regular. The way this band and this album in particular achieve this is by questioning what makes a ‘metal’ or rock record – is it heavy? In parts it is heavier than a pallet full of chrome dildos, but if you were a listener jumping in while they are seguing with the sound of a farting trombone®, it would be like stopping Saving Private Ryan after the first twenty minutes and not watching anything more – a complete misdirection of the final product. Does it have conventional form? Well, seeing as Rock music has become so fragmented anyway, I guess that could be considered the new conventional – there ain’t no singalong choruses though. Is it an ambient record? As sure as Eno is not in love with the mirror image of Eno projected onto rotting weatherboard – as sure as Fargo. Essentially, Neurosis constantly remind themselves why they became a band in the first place: to push themselves. Hell, they even run their own label that releases their work and other people’s crap – even Michael Gira had to scale down his operation to stay afloat.
This has been absolutely excruciatingly painful to write, and I’ve written an article on why music from Donkey Kong Country 2 is good without any physical effort. I’m fucking sweating here. My laptop keys are dripping with oil. My cat looks very concerned, distressed even. My housemate has left the goddamned room. Times of Grace/Grace is coming to a close and I’ve barely scratched the fucking surface here – but maybe that is the point. Neurosis are a band that requires total effort, concentration and commitment. There are no quarter ass attempts here and you cannot put this shit on while you go out a fall into a lake. These guys invented an entire sub-genre of music by simply putting in a bit of hard work and effort and I’ll be goddamned if the listener doesn’t have to do this too. That is an important aspect to learn in life and perhaps applying it to how we digest art makes it achieve more sense and meaning. As the album finishes and the sound of a spluttering reel spools out of control, I’ve realized that seeing a band this way within a live context would be as devouring and spirit enriching as what I imagine marathon running or novel writing is like – an act rewarding effort. I would be a very stupid man if I did not jump at this opportunity – I recommend you best not miss too.
I am going to go lie down.
Read about their upcoming tour here and buy tickets for your respective city date here.
RECOMMENDED RECORDS
Times of Grace (1999, Relapse Records)
Honor Found in Decay (2012, Neurot Recordings)
Through Sliver in Blood (1996, Relapse Records)
