A SUN THAT NEVER SETS

Neurosis is a band with a distinctive sound driven by sludgy guitars and aggresive screaming vocals while still maintaining atmospheric. They are often regarded as the pioneers of post- metal and have influenced many major bands in that genre, like Isis and Pelican. The band's seventh full length studio album, A Sun That Never Sets, shows the band taking a more avant- garde and experimental direction than before.

The album features very frequent softer and atmospheric parts, making the album very atmospheric. The songs often progress, starting out with clean guitar playing and slowly moving towards sludgy riffs and fierce screams. Despite the low tempos that the sludgy riffs are played in, they rarely fail to sound powerful, fierce and rough. Every now and then the typical instruments are accompanied by violin or something that sounds like a bagpipe. This proves to work out really well and helps to make the album more diverse in sound. Apart from the album having a very fine overall atmosphere, most of the individual pieces are able to stand on their own legs perfectly as well. The first half of the album clearly features more heavy outbursts than the music after the exotic piece "From Where Its Roots Run", serving as some kind of turning point in the album's flow. The sound of the music after this interlude is less fierce and aggresive, though still very angst laden. The album knows several highlights, like "From The Hill" with its bagpipes; the title track with its experimental tendencies; the epic finale of "Falling Unknown; and "Stones From the Sky", probably being my favorite track of the album. I personally don't think this album really has any weak tracks, though some are significantly less outstanding than others.

A Sun That Never Sets is a great album, though not what I would call a masterpiece. Lasting almost 70 minutes, it tends to drag a bit when listening to the entire album. Still, the album doesn't lack roughness, aggresion and slow, sludgy riffs. Therefore, I feel the album is worth four stars, being an excellent album but no masterpiece.