Neurosis – Honor Found in Decay

Neurosis
Honor Found In Decay
Neurot Recordings
★

Have you ever had a friend that recommends a band years upon years but for whatever reason you just never take initiative to look them up? Neurosis is that band to me. Always heard of them but never officially ‘heard’ them, until now. When assigned to hear Oakland’s despondent sons’ newest album Honor Found in Decay, I realized that my once good friend apparently knew very little about me. While I can appreciate the craftsmanship to forge this brand of progressive doom metal, after a few tracks, Honor Found in Decay only lays the backdrop for droning dissonance.

Honor Found in Decay begins unceremoniously with the melancholic intro of “We All Rage in Gold”. Each guitar riff crunches against a skeleton rhythm compiled of frivolous synth and uninspired grunts/growls from Scott Kelly and Steve Von Till.

Neurosis’ calculatingly barren soundscape of “At The Well” effectively tests a listener’s patience with a bloated runtime of ten minutes (as is every track) in the fleeting hope that the entanglement of medieval groans and classical concertos reach a climax. Eventually, “My Heart For Deliverance” with brooding guitar and insurgent cymbal clangs gives Honor Found in Decay its first and only figurative breath of life. “Bleeding The Pigs” continues Neurosis’ trademark of musical isolation within lyrical despair. The album slumps along at a zombie pace.

Neurosis – My Heart For Deliverance

Neurosis finds solitude in the primitive soundscape and have banished their audience into the narrow catacombs of acceptance.

Honor Found in Decay is a cerebral misstep. Its divine interludes contains sludgy horror house samples, caveman grunts and crunchy reverb-ridden guitar work. It only seems more oppressing to the intentional desolate framework. Also, each long-winded track clocks in 10 minutes or more. It only negates what little progression was accomplished from one somber bridge to the next. The final track “Raise the Dawn” is a decadence of sonic upheaval. The album spirals to his anti-climactic descent. Honor Found in Decay presents a valid argument, despite the passion. We question what should be considered music and what is simply just noise.