NEUROSIS Prepares To Engage Brooklyn and Philadelphia Audiences Next Week

The next round of live performances from the mighty NEUROSIS draws near, as the outfit prepares to invade the Northeast for shows in Brooklyn and Philadelphia next week.

Next Saturday, January 19th NEUROSIS will return to the historic Masonic Temple in Brooklyn, the venue they nearly tore to the ground when they last played in New York with a pair of shows in early 2008 with openers Mastodon. On this trek the opening support for NEUROSIS will be provided by the scathing drum/guitar attack of ex-Khanate/Khlyst duo James Plotkin and Tim Wyskida on their new experimental venture in auditory torture.

The following day, Sunday January 20th, the quintet will devastate audiences in Philadelphia’s cavernous Union Transfer venue, marking the first NEUROSIS performance to hit the city since late 2004! Opening support for this special show will come from the solo act of John Baizley of Baroness. This will mark one of the very first performances from Baizley since before the massive bus crash the band has been recovering from slowly since mid-August.

Opening support for NEUROSIS’ following live actions next month in Denver and Austin have also been confirmed, with Native Daughters and Jay Munly leading the festivities in Denver on February 16th, and the brutal billing of Eyehategod and Rwake kicking things off at the Austin show on the 17th. The band has also been confirmed for 2013’s installment of the massive Hellfest festival in Clisson, France. The gathering runs from June 21st through 23rd, and will see NEUROSIS sharing the stage with Kiss, ZZ Top, Down, Bad Religion, At The Gates, Kreator and hundreds more.


NEUROSIS treated spectators in their native hometown of Oakland to a free, invite-only concert on New Year’s Day, catching many longtime fans by surprise. View new live footage of the performance and more HERE.

NEUROSIS Honor Found In Decay Live Actions:

1/19/2013 Brooklyn Masonic Temple - Brooklyn, NY w/ James Plotkin/Tim Wyskida
1/20/2013 Union Transfer - Philadelphia, PA w/ John Baizley
2/16/2013 Summit Music Hall - Denver, CO w/ Native Daughters, Jay Munly
2/17/2013 Emo’s East - Austin, TX w/ Eyehategod, Rwake
6/21/2013 Hellfest - Clisson, France


Following the CD and digital releases of the acclaimed Honor Found In Decay in late October, the deluxe 2xLP vinyl edition of NEUROSIS’ tenth studio album will be unleashed February 5th in North America, February 8th in Germany/Benelux/Finland and February 11th in the UK/World, via Relapse Records/Neurot Recordings. Packaged in a Stoughton tip-on gatefold jacket and accompanied by a 16-page LP-sized booklet, the audio was cut directly from the original studio master tapes and pressed on 180-gram vinyl, which will be available in five different colors: 2000 on black, 1000 on translucent smoke grey, 500 on translucent yellow, 500 on translucent orange, and 100 on clear, not available to the public.



Preorders can be placed via Neurot and Relapse now!

CORRECTIONS HOUSE: Members Of Eyehategod, Neurosis, Nachtmystium, Yakuza Unite; Winter Tour Dates Confirmed

CORRECTIONS HOUSE, the new collective featuring Mike IX Williams (Eyehategod), Scott Kelly (Neurosis), Sanford Parker (Nachtmystium) and Bruce Lamont (Yakuza), today confirm a string a rare live shows. The 19-date trek will commence on January 21, 2013 in Brooklyn, New York and wind its way through much of the of the East Coast before concluding in Denver, Colorado. Special solo sets by Parker, Lamont, Kelly and Williams will be performed prior to closing each night as CORRECTIONS HOUSE. Further info on CORRECTIONS HOUSE to be announced in the coming days.


CORRECTIONS HOUSE Winter Tour 2013

1/21/2013 Saint Vitus Bar - Brooklyn, NY

1/22/2013 Great Scott - Boston, MA

1/23/2013 BAR - New Haven, CT

1/24/2013 Metro Gallery - Baltimore, MD

1/25/2013 DC9 - Washington, DC

1/26/2013 Strange Matter - Richmond, VA

1/27/2013  Kings Barcade – Raleigh, NC

1/28/2013 The Atlantic - Gainesville, FL

1/30/2013 Churchill’s - Miami, FL

1/31/2013 Crowbar - Tampa, FL

2/02/2013 Bottletree - Birmingham, AL

2/06/2013 Siberia - New Orleans, LA

2/07/2013 Rudyyards - Houston, TX

2/08/2013 Korova - San Antonio, TX

2/09/2013 Red 7 - Austin, TX

2/10/2013 Bryan Street Tavern - Dallas, TX

2/11/2013 Opolis – Norman, OK

2/13/2013 Slowdown - Omaha, NE

2/15/2013 Moon Room - Denver, CO

Horn's Musical Highlights of Late - featuring Christian Scott, Chet Baker, Ramesses, The Sword, mind over four, Law & Order, Dragged into Sunlight, Saint Vitus, nachtmystium, Menace Ruine, Incantation, Havok, Down, Witchsorrow, Bedemon, Bison BC, Neurosis, and Nails (phew!!)

Sometimes, a music critic such as myself, has... very little to say.


I can't think of any ingenious way to change the way you, the reader, hear something. Sometimes, I'm just outta ammo. Sometimes,  the only thing I can say is: "I like this. You should check it out."
So that's what I'm doing. Below are my most recent jazz and metal favorites. I really enjoy them; maybe you will too. I've given you a few sentences to impart, if you will, a flavor of my experience of their work.

JAZZ

Christian Scott, Christian aTunde Adjuah: Miraculously, a spin on Miles Davis' hollow, beseeching sound without kowtowing to him. A somehow New Orleans-warm yet icy-terrified trumpet bleat over doomy lyric song titles. Highlights: "New New Orleans (King Adjuah Stomp)," "Who They Wish I Was," and "Kiel." To me the best new jazz album of 2012.

Chet Baker Quartet, Jazz in Paris, Vol. 53: Chet Baker Quartet Plays Standards: Baker gets some shit from critics, like the New York Times' Ben Ratliff, for not giving a shit about evolving as an artist-- and truth be told, he never really did. But he's the only soloist, to this day, who loses energy and slowly dies as he solos, rather than building up to a crescendo. Easily my favorite trumpet player of all time, over Miles Davis and Christian Scott. Makes me wanna take up trumpet, to this day. Buddy Bolden reincarnated as a white junkie matinee idol.


METAL

Ramesses, Possessed by the Rise of Magik: From former members of Electric Wizard who found Dopethrone too pussy-- disgusting, gritty blackened doom riffs if they were played in a garage and/or torture chamber. Production value zero, and somehow perfect.

The Sword, Apocryphon: The detuned perfect heaviness of their debut Age of Winters, but with a tiny splash of that Texas blues that was probably too obvious on their previous LP, Warp Riders. They can do better, but still pretty great. Top 10 of the year.

mind over four, The Goddess and Halfway Down: Two-decade-old alterna-progressive-metal that is still disgustingly/ criminally underrated. Either album should be in your top 50 of all time.

Law & Order, Guilty of Innocence: Cock-rock with a southern flair (from LA) from the late 80s that still is awesome and not embarrassing in any way. One of the only bands to make me wish I was playing in a rock, not metal, band. Not a bad song on this one. Classic-- top 50 of all time.

Dragged Into Sunlight, Widowmaker: Amazingly, these utterly-decrepit, sludgy, stonery black metal anonymous weirdos evolved on this record, and thisnoticeably so, from their previous release, Hatred For Mankind. Neurosis if they were Satanic black metallers.

Saint Vitus, Lillie: F-65: "Meh" at first, eventually moving up to "hrilled and loving it." The new version of the American blues, lapsteel-playing, deal-with-devil-making howls of despair. Top 10 of the year.

Nachtmystium, Silencing Machine: Perfect stoned black metal. The Cure or The Church if they loved and emulated Darkthrone.

Menace Ruine, Alight in Ashes: Black metal so weird it practically becomes spectral classical music. I dare you to listen to this on acid.

Incantation, Vanquish in Vengeance: Like Asphyx, generic but truly great (American) Brutal Death Metal. You know if this is for you or not.

Havok, Point of No Return: "Re-thrash" as powerful and energetic (though generic) as it gets. There's two covers on this EP, "Raining Blood," and Sepultura's "Arise." They should not have included them. Havok's originals are great, but not that great, and they're just asking for unfavorable comparisons.

Down, Down IV, Pt. I-- The Purple EP: Down is never as good as they should be, as you think they'll be. Previous tunes "Bury Me in Smoke," "There's Something on My Side," and "On March the Saints," are truly great stoner metal tunes, as are Purple's "The Curse," and "This Work is Timeless." But from these guys? There should be more immortality.

Witchsorrow, God Curse Us: Title track, with the refrain of "God curse us, every one..." a cheeky Dickensian nod, or seriously-depressed Shawn-Spencerian perveyoring of dispairitude? Ha! Anyway: doom-worshipping, Hellhammer-loving greatness. Sounds like modern mixing/mastering, but also sounds like a NWOBHM album, where the band was rushing, in 1982, in the studio to record their ideas, when they were sucked into a time vortex and got their asses wormholed into a 2012 studio....

Bedemon, Symphony of Shadows: The other half of Pentagram-- Interestingly, sounds like Witchsorrow, but was actually recorded nearly two decades ago. Astoundingly prophetic. Could've been recorded yesterday.

Bison BC, Lovelessness: Vaguely NWOBHM-ish sludge that loves to eventually gallop and whorl, to take off from its slower stoner metal tropes... not better than Dark Ages, but just as good.

Neurosis, Honor Found in Decay: "We All Rage in Gold," opens with third/fourth dyads, played as clean/ crystalline as humanly, as Scott Kelly-ishly as possible; at around 1:00 we gets the GEE-tars... sounding a bit Sisters of Mercy-ish, if we're being truthful... at @ 1:35 there's a human throat sounding off over the crystal... 3:28, and there's a lonely bass and a Hammond-ish synth effect.... "At the Well" begins with the dying emanations of a suicidal homeless man, or something to that effect... at 4:20 a bitter and romantically-mournful sitar riff (are they called riffs?) that seems perfectly appropriate and perfect... at around 7:00 we get a combination of meditation music/ Zen sounds and heavy fucking metal, as the entire album continues this now very familiar Neurosis blueprint....

Nails, Obscene Humanity: A 3-song ep to tide you over until their new one. Pretty much just like their previous LP, Unsilent Death, for better or worse. Ripping hardcore punks worshiping Entombed....

So there you go. Hopefully something here gets under your skin and into your guts. Figuratively.

--Horn

US Christmas - Run Thick In The Night

Feeling down? Trouble at home? Financial stress? Relationship problems? Then you should probably stay away from the new one from US Christmas (aka USX). Or maybe you need to revel in your pain. If that’s the case, then get this one pronto and feel the darkness. Run Thick In The Night is 13 lucky tracks in 77 minutes from these North Carolina depressionists. USX has been inflecting their brand of psychedelic gloom on the underground for 8 years and show no signs of letting up.

USX is a heavy band, but not so much in the Black Sabbath sense, more in the Swans, Killing Joke and Neurosis vein. Add a healthy dose of Hawkwind and druggy Velvet Underground noise to the mix and you’ve got something pretty out of the ordinary. The opening song “In The Night” sets the tone for the entire record – 13 minutes of sprawling, crawling ear pummeling drone rock. Somewhere La Monte Young is proud.

The entire album flows together very well as one very long piece. Once you put it on it’s hard to take off and the echoes of all the seesaw violin and slide guitar feedback stick in your brain long after the disc is done spinning. There’s also a nice blend of acoustic and electric instruments weaving in and out of the mix. Vocals are mainly hoarse and shouted but carry a weary melodicism. The recording by Sanford Parker is clean enough for all the separate elements to come through clearly and never gets murky in detuned fartery.

The standout song for me is definitely “Wolf On Anareta.” I’m sure this was not the intention of anyone involved but the riff bears a very strong resemblance to “Too Hot To Stop” by The Rods. If you’ve ever wondered what Hawkwind would sound like covering that classic metal jam (and I have) then you will be thrilled. Even if you haven’t, you might still like this one.


--Woody

buy here: Run Thick in the Night
mp3: Run Thick In The Night

http://www.myspace.com/uschristmas

Neurosis - Live at Roadburn 2007

I recently got a double burst of Neurosis dropped in my lap, a sensation not all that different than having a bowling dropped on your junk. But unlike the bowling ball incident, the Neurosis treatment was something that I enjoyed and wish would happen more often. Neurosis is a band that folks either love or just don’t get. I, for one, love them to death and quite frankly can’t be certain if I get them in the least. There’s just something about the primordial droning and hypnotic waves of distortion, the assault of sonic destruction that draws me to these guys like a woman to a shoe sale. The two albums that made their way into my possession and subsequent consciousness are the re-issue of the classic Enemy of the Sun (brilliant album in its original state, even better with the added tracks) and the more recent Live at Roadburn 2007. There’s nothing new that I could write about Enemy of the Sun, so I’ll just leave it as it’s a must have, therefore stop reading this and go get it before reading on. Live at Roadburn 2007, however, is new for me and something that I can’t stop listening to.

I figure that I have a few screws loose, I didn’t get the proper nurturing as a child, or I just don’t get enough sleep to make the extreme noise parade that Neurosis produces something I look forward to. It’s not the kind of music that I typically gravitate towards in that the music doesn’t have the ballsy guitar riffs or mighty mosh parts or variation of mood that makes me punch drunk. But, that’s not to say that this music is any less dynamic. In fact, the music that Neurosis creates is arguably more dynamic than the better half of modern music it’s just that these guys just do it with volume and tone. Filled with imposing phrases and dark words, the detuned, heavy music creates an element of dread and sorrow, hopelessness for the future on mankind, yet . . . I find it completely fascinating! Like when we’re driving and catch a glimpse of roadkill . . . no, we don’t think it’s beautiful, but we all take a long glance at the deceased if not for fascination then for the hope that we can distinguish the breed of critter. That sensation is about the closest analogy I can come up with for Neurosis.

Okay, on with the album. “A Season In The Sky” is a majestic, near ten minute epic of dread and despair. The bass line that creeps out of the fog sets the tone for this song right off the bat and one can easily get the sense that something ominous is upon us. As the vocals enter, the chills run up the spine and the mind races through the wild imagery that’s being strewn across our minds’ eye. This is one of those cases where a band doesn’t need to utilize thrashing drums and cutting guitars to be heavy. The subject matter, the performance, the vocal tones, the bass tones . . . all of it is done with such intensity that the heaviness is more of a matter of fact than studio trickery. It’s well over four minutes before the rest of the band chimes in to make their presence known, but when they do, they don’t pummel us into submission as one might expect, but rather compliment the tones that have already been set. In time, the detuned guitars take center stage and the overbearing weight of the Neurosis that we’ve come to misunderstand and love shine on.

“At the End of the Road” follows next and clocks in at about eight and a half minutes. This track opens with a pulsating drone and steady tom attack from the drummer, creating yet again, a sense of dread and impending doom. This is the Neurosis that I seem to like the best . . . a band that channels their primitive ancestors, communicating in a primordial sense, generating a dark tribal vibe. This intro always makes me feel like it should have been part of the Apocalypse Now soundtrack. I hear this song and I’m transported to the jungles of Vietnam . . . or Cambodia . . . or Laos, you pick, and I’m creeping through the dense foliage with only survival on my mind. Rain pours down periodically while shadows shift along my peripheral vision, always make me turn my head to catch a cleaner view of what’s out there and only finding more jungle . . . always knowing that I’m being watched . . . being hunted. Right around the 5:30 mark, the song opens up, finds a groove and we get that pummeling sensation that Neurosis mastered long, long ago. The bass notes come from various places on the neck of the instrument, the guitars carry the weight of ages, the drums like a heartbeat in a darkened room . . . deafening.

“Distill” is another gem on this album. There’s more groove to this song than most of the others during this particular performance. I love the chaotic burst that explodes as the vocals enter the mix. One guitar is creating a sustained droning tone while the second guitar emits flurries of distorted notes. Masterful! And then the whole thing collapses into ambiance. The guitars suddenly go clean and subtle arpeggios are plucked from the instruments . . . and then BOOM! Chaos ensues once again! When listening to Neurosis this is to be expected. You may want to hear the band go into a long, extended riff frenzy, but know that they’re not gonna’. Their always going to take their music in a direction that is so left of center that it almost feels like they have no direction. But that’s when we as listeners need to stop and rethink how we perceive music. The ambient portions of this song are flat out scary, the rocking portions are devastatingly heavy.

“Water Is Not Enough” is a classic. I’ve heard this song in my sleep for a million years, making me think that I’m must be related to this alien race of musicians in some way, shape or form. Brutally heavy and everything one would expect in association when the name Neurosis is mentioned. One of the band’s shorter tracks at almost six and a half minutes, “Water Is Not Enough” is darn near accessible. The riffs are condensed, but the textures that they create shift the brain fluid from one side of the head to the other, creating a dizzying effect. Slow and steady, hard and heavy, music Neurosis-style . . .

Most people won’t have the patience for a band like Neurosis because the music takes time to get the end of the tale. It’s almost like reading one of Stephen King’s 1,000 word epics, or any James Mischner novel, the story takes time to develop, always building upon itself, incorporating various levels of nuance, until we get to the very end and sit back breathless, thinking to ourselves, “Holy shit.” Live at Roadburn 2007 is a fabulous recording partially due to the bands ability to perform music from their catalog and still create the dynamic mood and tones almost effortlessly. I also like that the crowd noise is at a minimum on this recording. I don’t mind crowd noise on live efforts, especially when we get to hear them chant along with the songs a la Iron Maiden or Rush, but in the case of Neurosis, I like that the focus is purely on the band and their ability to pull off the performance in a live setting versus the relative safety of the studio. Live at Roadburn 2007 is a good starting point for anyone interested in learning more about the band and hearing what they’re all about. Beyond that, Enemy of the Sun is a can’t miss.  -  Pope

buy here:  Live at Roadburn 2007
mp3: Live at Roadburn 2007

www.neurosis.com

www.myspace.com/officialneurosis