Post-metal pioneers Neurosis surprised fans on Friday with a shock release of a new album, their first in a decade. ‘An Undying Love for a Burning World’ was released through independent label Neurot Recordings, which specialises in underground bands of the sort Neurosis popularised.
This is Neurosis’ first album without longtime vocalist Scott Kelly, who publicly resigned from the band in 2022, when he publicly confessed to “emotional, financial, verbal and physical abuse” towards his family. He had actually been fired in 2019 for undisclosed reasons, which came to light through his public admission of abuse. In his place, the album features Aaron Turner of fellow post-metal architects Isis and Sumac on vocals.
Speaking of his feelings towards the new project, Turner said that “from the moment I first heard Neurosis over 30 years ago, I felt this was the music my heart and mind had been seeking but not yet heard”, declaring that he feels happy with the band’s trajectory.
The general theme of the album is the climate crisis and humanity’s impact upon the earth, suitable for a band who have made a career out of grand soundscapes which carry natural undertones. Speaking of the album’s theme, Neurosis released a statement declaring that “it is enough to cause you to completely lose your mind if you can’t find release or catharsis. This strange emotionally charged music has always been our method of trying to survive this and this is what we’ve always been singing about… this was now or never”.
The album sonically fits in well with their wider discography, with huge sonic experimentation and emotional vulnerability paired with heavy riffs and abstract, occasionally sludgy, effects. Beginning with a distant piece, the title track, which contains only vocals, the album fully kicks in with track two and the dense riffage of ‘Mirror Deep’. Across the hour-length run time, the band continue with a modern version of their classic sound.
Neurosis began life as a markedly different band. Their first album, 1987’s ‘Pain of Mind’, is a crust punk release. By 1992’s ‘Souls at Zero’, they had begun including more progressive and sludgy elements into the sound, taken to new heights on 1996’s ‘Through Silver in Blood’, often hailed as a landmark release in the evolution of the dreamy yet crushing post-metal that followed in the coming years. With Kelly’s departure, now known to have taken place in 2019, the band began a period of hiatus, saying that “in due course, when it’s appropriate, we will provide more information about our future musical endeavors, but that time is not now.”
With the release of the album and their return to music, the band have also announced their presence at this year’s Fire in the Mountains festival in Montana in aid of teenage suicide awareness. Steve von Till, the band’s guitarist, said that “last year’s Fire in the Mountains festival was the most profound music event I have ever been a part of. The weekend took on a healing, cathartic ceremonial nature that is difficult to put into words. Using emotionally heavy music to build community and collectively stare darkness in the eye is something we have always believed in”.
