NEUROSIS — A Sun That Never Sets (review)

NEUROSIS — A Sun That Never Sets album cover

Album · 2001 · Atmospheric Sludge Metal

4/5 · 2011-10-01
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.