Phonebook Eater 8/10

"A Sun That Never Sets" is the huge, slow-moving guardian of the endless fire sparks that keep alive the distant skies of the darkest heaven.

With “A Sun That Never Sets” Neurosis start to go on a slightly different path than the one of their second period (from “Soul At Zero” to “Times Of Grace”), reaching to a third period that will end with the last album “Given To The Rising”. Maybe some die-hard fans of “Through Silver In Blood” will get a little turned off by this 2001 release, and even more with “The Eye Of Every Storm” in 2004, but in truth ASTNS is one of the greatest releases of this legendary band.

The reason this album could turn off fans is because it’s simply more experimental, more calm and atmospheric, and the sludgier moments are put a little aside. Sampling is still present, but they got a lot weirder sounding, and also the more electronic sounds are much more well done than their previous albums. Here Neurosis almost sounds like a prog band, even though they’ve always shown plenty of influences of such kind. In some moments the music gets even a little orchestral ( Times Of Grace had some moments such as these though), so with all these characteristics you can clearly see it’s a somewhat unusual Neurosis album.

While “Times Of Grace” and “Silver In Blood” felt like in-your-face, enormous beasts, “ Sun That Never Sets” is the huge, slow-moving guardian of the endless fire sparks, that keep alive the distant skies of the darkest heaven you can imagine . It’s an alarmed album, that seems like it’s always tense and looking for something, and when it does see something, a doomy riff will explode and again melt your face like Neurosis usually does.

The unusualness of the album is clear from the starting notes of “Tide”; when ever has Neurosis started an LP in such a calm, mysterious way? I loved the fact that “A Sun That Never Sets” begins like this, ), so disturbingly quiet ( even though this track does start after the intro, that gives in my opinion a lot of hype for the following piece). Eventually the song explodes into a nice sludgy riff, that would give a smile to every die-hard fan. The album has no low points, all the songs go from good to great; “From The Hill” is the follow up to “Tide”, an interesting song with an interesting structure, and some great riffs here and there. The title track has one of the coolest effects Neurosis has ever come up with, it really gives an eerie atmosphere to the track. Other highlights are “Crawl Back In”, a somewhat tenser, more mysterious and calmer song, and the final near ten minute epic “Stones From The Sky”, a perfect ending to this album, with a dramatic, epic tone to it. “Falling Unknown” seems to be highly regarded also; one of the band’s longest songs (clocks around thirteen minutes), it is majestically structured, mainly in two parts, both of these have outstanding build-ups that culminate in outstanding bursts. The shamanic “From Where It’s Roots Run” and the constantly vigilant “Watchtower” are also really good pieces that have to be mentioned.

This seventh effort for Neurosis is one of the best examples of Atmospheric Sludge Metal, it has a perfect balance between the calm and the aggressive. An album recommendable to any metal fan, a great listen that if you’re a fan of such music you’ll very most likely love.

Kingcrimsonprog Neurosis’s seventh full length studio album A Sun That Never Sets was released in 2001, following up their classic 1999 release Times Of Grace and saw the band develop their unique and creative sound further, expanding their sound and exploring new territories while still in part maintaining their trademark crushing, sludgey metal sound.

First of all, let me just say that describing art of any kind is difficult and I apologize if anything here comes across as either pretentious or seems to infer some idea of inherent superiority, that is not my intention whatsoever and indeed I dislike reading such things myself.

Neurosis themselves are a pioneering and important act with surprising origins in hardcore punk, who released a continuingly diverse and impressive set of albums throughout their career that cause extremely high praise from fans despite their almost non-existent commercial potential. They are the kind of band who people will call ‘genius,’ genuinely and very often.

To say that A Sun That Never Sets is a challenging record is a grave understatement, indeed if this was your first Neurosis album and you listened to it without first hearing anything influenced by it to acclimatize yourself then it would be entirely understandable if you flat out hated the record on initial listens.

As with all Neurosis records, the challenge of uncovering the quality music underneath is very rewarding and once you overcome the dense textures and interminable slowness, you will discover an almost beautiful record you never imagined would exist on the same disc you disliked so much before. This of course will not be the case if you are already a big Neurosis fan, or at least a fan of other challenging and arty Post-Metal, but for the first time listener at least there is certainly a barrier to overcome.

Indeed; The actual, almost physical pain that the record can cause you while you sit there urging it to simply speed up is a part of the overall experience and is strangely enjoyable.

I was recommended the record on the basis that it was allegedly the most artistic record made by any metal band that year and because the band were similar to Tool in terms of artistic merit and performance. Perhaps this was a very misleading statement, but at least it does communicate how Neurosis are designed to be enjoyed, which is listening to the entire record from start to finish, giving it your full undivided attention, listening again and again on numerous occasions to allow the music to grow on you as you uncover new little touches every time.

Neurosis of course are beyond Influential, and are responsible for informing a part of the sound of a great deal of interesting and important bands such as Mastodon, with whom singer Scott Kelly frequently collaborates and other bands such as the entire new movement of Southern American Sludge influenced bands as well as innumerable progressive and post metal bands.

Scott Kelly has an amazing voice that is able to convey a lot of ideas and emotions and he absolutely shines on this record, some of his screams and wounded sounding bellows are seriously impressive and evocative and Steve Von Till too is on top form throughout.

Folk and Tribal influences are two of the things that were introduced with A Sun That Never Sets as well a violins and violas, however not how you would expect from other metal bands. The inclusion is subtle and blends well into the bands dense, sludgey and powerful metal sound.

Overall; Neurosis’s A Sun That Never Sets is not for everyone, it is not an album you can stick on at a party or put on in the background while doing something taxing. If you are patient and willing to give it a fair chance however, you will likely be genuinely impressed.

Sleepwalker 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.