3/18/2013

Neurosis: "Honor Found in Decay"

Album Cover Neurosis

One of my first musical memories is my dad telling me about how Dire Straits were used to test speakers because of the contrast of quiet and loud in their songs. Like most of the things he told me, I wholeheartedly believed it – and the juxtaposition of quiet and loud in a song became a deciding criterion in my judgment of a band’s quality. My pre-teen catalogue of criteria has widened a bit since then, but the fascination with contrasts in volume has survived. For that reason, I still have to think of my dad’s speaker testing story whenever I listen to Neurosis – a band that has perfected the quiet-loud thing …although I would probably have been scared of them as a kid.

Quiet and loud is, of course, also a central characteristic of their new album Honor Found in Decay. There are plenty of moments when I turned up the volume, naively going “Wait. What? What is he whispering? What is that quiet little melody?” – only to frantically turn it down again when the guitars go BOOM! out of nowhere causing me to curse myself for having fallen for it again. I think, though, that this is not so much about quiet/loud but rather about ugly/beautiful (much like my former roommate Elliot's photo exhibit “Beautiful/decay” – and I don't think that I was only making that connection because of the word decay in both titles. Although Elliot juxtaposed the beauty of nature with the destructive influence of man, I think that he also found a certain beauty in decay, which also characterizes my listening experience of this CD). This juxtaposition applies not only to the music, but also to the lyrics, whose portentous tone reminds me of the narrator’s voice in Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian, which has a similar biblical, ominous quality. That book, by the way, also plays with extremes: while it contains some of the most violent stuff I have read, it’s also beautifully written.

Unlike the path Neurosis had taken with The Eye of Every Storm, with its overall trippy and actually quite beautiful sound that’s occasionally interrupted by some aggressive parts, Honor Found in Decay follows its predecessor Given to the Rising in emphasizing ugliness and interspersing it with a few moments of relief. Whether they are crushingly loud or slow and destructive like lava, their apocalyptic blues is quite unnerving in its relentlessness and the light moments become much needed breathers. My favorite songs are “At the Well” and “Raise the Dawn.” From the violent and multilayered culmination of the first into repeated screams of “in the shadow world” to the latter’s subtle outro with a lamenting violin – Neurosis are still monumental, ugly, and, well, beautiful all at the same time. These songs are reminders that in their best moments, Neurosis are in a league of their own. All we can do is stand in awe and be aware that we are witnessing something great.

On the other hand, there are parts on Honor Found in Decay when my attention starts to wander. To say that I get bored is not quite true – and even if I was, Neurosis somehow manage to make me look for blame not in them but in myself: if I get bored, it’s probably because I don’t understand. In these moments of wandering attention, I ask myself why I am listening to that kind of stuff. Or think about when is really the right moment to listen to music like that. The fact that these questions come up is perhaps already a kind of answer. This is music that asks such questions, music that demands something from the listener. There is something very cathartic in listening to Neurosis.  I think a line in the album’s opener could neatly be transposed to what they might be considered as: “deafening redeemers.” I am listening to Neurosis because their crushing noise, relentless ugliness, and relieving beauty make every new album an event and listening to them an intense and cathartic experience – and Honor found in Decay is no exception. Now I’m ready for something a little lighter, though…