Neurosis
Honor Found In Decay

February 2013
Released: 2012, Neurot Recordings
Rating: 5.0/5
Reviewer: Metal-Rules.com UK Team

With a career that spans almost 30 years, Neurosis are one of the true giants of the doom metal movement – and a band with a reputation for doing things exactly how they want them to be done, not least in the founding of their own bespoke record label, Neurot, a little over a decade ago, for which this is their third full-length studio album (and their tenth in total).



It’s been five years since the band’s last platter, the awesome ‘Given To The Rising’, but it has been well worth the wait, as ‘Honor Found In Decay’ is another masterwork – and an epic one at that, with its seven tracks spanning slightly more than an hour. It’s another demonstration of how Neurosis use the darkness to fill the spaces of your soul into which their music slowly seeps…



Opener ‘We All Rage In Gold’ opens in characteristically undr-stated style, building its wall of noise slowly and with the anticipation that comes right before that moment you inevitably plough into the back of the juggernaut in front of you, knowing that your brakes had failed just seconds earlier, while ‘At The Well’ and ‘My Heart For Deliverance’ are both dark and morose yet hypnotically entrancing; ‘Bleeding The Pigs’ is dankly ambient, contrasting sparse, atmospheric electronica with mind-blowingly crushing riffs, and ‘Casting Of The Ages’ is cavernous in its brooding depth.



‘All is Found… In Time’ initially references the band’s punk roots, with its opening drum salvo by far the fastest few moments on the opus, before kicking into a classic downtuned bass riff, which again is mesmerising in its effectiveness, especially when coupled with the downright evil-sounding main vocal; closer ‘Raise The Dawn’ is the antithesis of its title: another slice of epic (despite being the shortest track on the album, at just shy of six minutes) brutality, it’s the perfect ending to a nigh on perfect slice of classic doom metal.



This album is a must!



Review by Mark Ashby