SAMPLE IDENTIFICATION

Artist: Neurosis
Album: Through Silver in Blood
Release Year: 1996
Country: United States
Label: Relapse
Studio Album No.: 5
Genre(s): Post-Metal / Sludge / Industrial
Tracklist:
1. Through Silver in Blood – 12:11
2. Rehumanize – 01:46
3. Eye – 05:17
4. Purify – 12:18
5. Locust Star – 05:48
6. Strength of Fates – 09:43
7. Become the Ocean – 01:27
8. Aeon – 11:43
9. Enclosure in Flame – 10:19
Total: 70:32

BACKGROUND

Neurosis started out as a hardcore punk band initially inspired by crust punk and no wave outfits such as Crass or Swans. Their transition to heavy metal was gradual over the first few albums, culling from different schools of metaldom over time: the doom of Black Sabbath, the thrash of Metallica, the grind of Napalm Death. All the while they maintained vestiges of their earlier punkish roots, culminating into what is considered one of the first post-metal albums ever made with their fifth studio effort Through Silver in Blood.

METALLURGICAL EVALUATION

My knowledge of Neurosis is limited to the middle run of studio albums: Enemy of the Sun (4th) through Given to the Rising (9th). I know nothing of their punk beginnings and how they settled into their sound over the course of 10 years or so before releasing this, their most acclaimed and quintessential album and the supposed birth of post-metal. I guess no one was really embracing heavy metal and mixing it with ambient textures, otherwordly psychedelia, and tinges of industrial aggressiveness yet? The cover art even suggests something in the vein of a creepy H. R. Giger-style mechanized nightmare. As time goes on the Neurosis sound will get reigned in further, losing some of that aggressive punch but maintaining the slow, calculated and somber doomy riffage. In other words, it gets a little more boring. I once read that no Neurosis album sounds like another, and from my sampling of six studio albums out of eleven I can at least admit agreement to that for now.

In my experience, the affixation of “post-” in front of an established genre name is intended to mean “experimental” but usually means “intellectualized”. Post-rock, post-metal, post-hardcore, post-punk, all these new genres are usually the product of overachieving art students or otherwise “thoughtful” individuals. I’d have to agree that Through Silver in Blood certainly feels smarter on the surface than, say, Judas Priest or Megadeth or, like, Darkthrone or something. I think a lot of that comes from the willingness to stray from established metal framework in certain respects, even going as far as to include some motherfuckin’ bagpipes during the coda of “Purify”! More on that later. The long-as-hell track lengths allow some of these monsters to really flesh out with nuanced, hypnotic builds, appealing to the both the body and the mind. There’s also some real oppressive atmosphere at play here with the plodding, heavy-as-bedrock slabs of guitar and the dirgy, tired-old-man growling vocals, evoking feelings of despair or claustrophobia. That’s a plus in my book.

Too much of that smartypants aesthetic, though, gets dry and stale over a goddamn 70-minute runtime, especially when the main hook appear to be tribal rhythmic repetition. For some reason, I don’t mind submerging my brain into a trance-like hypnosis with electronic or krautrock or post-punk music, but metal tends to want to activate a more engaged and conscious part of my mind that the looping rhythmic descent into Hell doesn’t satisfy. For my money, the 12-minute titular opener does that job nicely on its own and a lot of me wishes the rest of the tracks were much shorter. As for “Purify”, my personal favorite, I tend to spend the first nine minutes patiently waiting for my favorite part of the whole album: the bagpipes! Man, those bagpipes are cool. Too bad there’s still 40 more minutes of the album to go after that’s over!

Otherwise, for the defense, there are plenty of neat and innovative inclusions throughout the record that I don’t want to overlook, bagpipes notwithstanding! Unsettling voice sample interludes between tracks, distorted rattling bass, other unorthodox metal instrumentation such as violin and piano.

Figure 1. The Lumberjack Tournament qualifiers are mad because there’s no goddamn Snapple in the coolers.

CONCLUSIONS

I suppose I’m still ambivalent overall about Through Silver in Blood even after seven years of casual acquaintanceship with the album. Last.FM says I’ve listened to it 20 times, which is probably enough to make a sensible and convictive judgment call. I’m lukewarm about it! I appreciate what it represents in metal history, and I appreciate what it does from a artful perspective, and I appreciate the thoughtfulness of the final product, but going purely by personal enjoyment…it’s too long and a lot of it doesn’t keep my interest. I wonder if the album suffers from “Seinfeld is Unfunny” syndrome, where the features that made the album groundbreaking have become lost over the last 20+ years due to plenty of other bands appropriating similar features since. By now, any and all possible mixing of other genres within metal have been attempted. I think what makes Through Silver in Blood so great is that, to the ears of countless listeners, they did it right the very first time.

As far as Neurosis goes in general, I find Times of Grace to be a slightly more interesting version of Through Silver in Blood, and I find Enemy of the Sun an even better record overall. Each of the three albums after Times of Grace is more dull and edgeless than the previous. What does this tell me? I guess I need to check out the first three Neurosis albums, huh? I have a feeling that I’ll get a kick out of their hardcore punk roots. Maybe it’ll help me connect some dots for this particular album? I won’t give up on it just yet.