Review / Multiple Authors
Neurosis
Honor Found In Decay

Honor Found in Decay has been a long, long time coming. Having not released a full length since 2007 and with many of the band’s members taking on solo projects or working together on projects, it’s a wonder that Neurosis found the time to piece together this majestic album. Honor Found in Decay is a slow-burning and decadent work, which is Neurosis through and through and passages build in ferocious fire. “We All Rage in Gold” begins this record with a harsh vocal line spat over gently rising movements of guitar, swells of electronic weirdness and deep seams of ambient keys. Dips of pace pepper this first track and signature pulses of the Neurosis sound push for prominence over the rasped words of Scott Kelly, who echoes the pain of life in his instantly recognisable style. Honor Found in Decay is a devastatingly telling title for it at once evokes images of having to stay true to yourself, to your core and your values, whilst everything around you falls apart. Neurosis has never shied away from the difficulties found in just plain being alive, and this tenth record from them is both their most destructive and their most introspective and honest.

The quiet/loud dynamic is one that is much used in the genre of music that Neurosis find themselves a part of, the sludgy nature of their sound is pretty prevalent nowadays, yet Neurosis consistently and constantly push out of those boundaries and as such are regarded as masters of their craft and legends of their field. Honor Found in Decay is steeped in moments of quiet reflection married with stabs of heaviness and echoes of sweeping beauty, as evidenced by the gentle waves and crashes of sound found in “At the Well.” Melodic instances float through this track bringing a gloomy tone to proceedings that have otherwise been overwhelming in their controlled grasp of anger and despair. Sadness slips through the cracks and Neurosis pull shades of melancholia into their crushing rage.

The ambient landscapes wrought by Noah Landis on “My Heart for Deliverance” complements the deeply moving guitar work of Kelly and Steve Von Till, whose instruments seem to be mere extensions of their inner turmoil. This record often surprises with its handling of the truth and as always, the words of Neurosis are as important as the music heard.. “Bleeding the Pigs” holds a powerful narrative and the gentle rolls of drum behind clean voices and softly picked guitar serve to imbue the expressions of disaster with ever more command as the track flirts towards perpetually increasing loudness and the gravely forlorn “Casting of the Ages.”

Neurosis have been away for a very long time, yet it seems like only yesterday that this band were tearing our hearts out with the monumental heaves of sound and cries of desperation of Given to the Rising and Honor Found in Decay is a similarly terrifying emotional voyage into waters we have all found ourselves in at some time. Long may Neurosis continue to have the courage to expel these feelings where we have not.

We need them.

The rain is beating on my windows while the wind is whipping the trees into a whirling frenzy as people are declaring a weather apocalypse on the television, but “My Heart For Deliverance” slowly begins its ascent on my speakers before Neurosis just steps down on the song full on, blaring guitars and pounding drums throwing down the gauntlet to other upstarts and pretenders; Honor Found In Decay is proving to be an appropriate soundtrack to my latest hurricane experience as this virtual institution of heavy music puts forth another example of why they are held in such high esteem amongst the heavy music community. In my estimation “My Heart For Deliverance” is the “centerpiece” of this tenth album from Neurosis as it seethes and broods in the best ways possible (as well as an impressive command of dynamics and emotion) and serves as not just a highlight from Honor Found In Decay but from their long and notable existence, but that is not to say that the album does not have other songs of note because “We All Rage In Gold” (more great dynamic command as well as some awesome use of subtle noise that the band is so good at employing), “At The Well” (some great moments and powerful musical movements), and “Casting Of The Ages” (which melds the dark folk of Steve Von Till’s and Scott Kelly’s solo forays to the heaviness of Neurosis proper). Honor Found In Decay is a dense and dark affair that feels much like the proverbial eye of the storm (where I am sitting as I am typing this) as there are smatterings of the heaviness and raw unfettered anger that Neurosis can pump out while the majority of the album is a slow and slog with an almost tangible ebb and flow to the proceedings ,though at the back end of the album, that flow breaks up a bit with some songs that sometimes feel out of place with the earlier material; but the record still dominates my attention the whole time it plays, and yet the whole time Honor Found In Decay is playing, I keep waiting for Neurosis to be, well, Neurosis and absolutely crush me (some songs definitely fool you into thinking it is coming and maybe that is the point that type of anticipated suspense). While that moment never really happens during the album, the men in Neurosis continue to be themselves in their constant evolution and rewriting of their legacy with every album, and the band’s music continues to help me weather any kind of storm, be it figurative or frighteningly real.