GIVEN TO THE RISING

Neurosis are the perfect example of, "if you're gonna do a genre which means noise and drone are concerned, do it right." And they did it right. To be honest, there are some arty farty metalheads who can't play instruments and decide that, "Oh, I'll make noise, that's kind of like music." But Neurosis, having been together for over 2 decades.

Sludge as a genre can also be quite tedious as well. To be honest there are some great bands who can make great heavy orientated drone music, like Kyuss & Iron Monkey. But, especially with people attempting to do what was done 15 years ago, it seems like the genre is losing out.

This being my only Neurosis album, I found it hard to grasp with the first few listens, but as I have dwelled within a deeper love of more extreme and avant garde types of music, this album has grown on me. The album is a bit long (70 minutes of slow sludge), but to be honest, this was a good album. They songs had me keenly intrested throughout and I seemed to not get bored, even by random noise.

1. Given To The Rising - The title track, and a great upbeat intro to the album. I love the riff, it's so chatastrophic. The middle section also has some intresting mellotron sections and noise. The end is quite amazing as well.

2. Fear & Sickness - A very doom laden track with great rhythym experimentation. I love the white noise and distortion at the end, very cool.

3. To The Wind - Definetelly a highlight on the album. Love the Cult Of Luna intro and the suprise link into the rocking riff. The spoken passage is also very eerie and effective. Great lyrics and amazing vocals from Scott.

4. At The End Of The Road - Probabbly the most avante garde song on the album. With a simple Native American like drum beat with spoken words with reverb. The lyrics are great as well.

5. Shadow - Very eerie and effective with some great noise and drone.

6. Hidden Faces - I love the repeated word passage throghout. One of the more shorter songs on this album.

7. Water Is Not Enough - I love the riff in this song, it's so dark and disturbing . The weird howls at the end are also very cool.

8. Distill (Watching The Swarm) - The intro is pretty dark and cool. The middle section reminds me of Bossk. The suspended organ part is also very cool, very scary and atmospheric. The ending is pretty cool as well.

9. 9 - Basically Shadow.

10. Origin - I like the intro, very dark with a nice rhythym pattern. I like how interesting spoken word with clean guitar is. The instrumental section is a bit long and boring to be honest. The song gets intresting when the vocals come back again though. Nice faded ending.

CONCLUSION: It's hard for me to say. I'm not the biggest Neurosis fan, so I don't know what this album is like compared to their other albums. All in all, it's a pretty kick ass album. Buy it - In a Clare Sweeney style fashion.