An Undying Love For A Burning World - Neurosis (2026)
Neurosis isn’t a band I’ve listened to a lot, but it seems like all the loud bands I love love Neurosis.
This is their first new release in ten years, and if we only get one Neurosis album per decade from here out, we’ll still be winning.
The world has obviously changed radically in that intervening ten years since the Fires Within Fires album. The band has changed as well.
They parted ways with original singer and guitarist Scott Kelly over his admissions of domestic abuse. Kelly was replaced with former Isis and Sumac leader Aaron Turner, although I don’t think anybody really knew that until they surprise-released this record.
Also changing: this is the first release since 2003 not to be produced by sonic brutalist Steve Albini, who died in 2024.
The sound of what Neurosis does hasn’t changed a whole lot, unless it’s just the natural erosion at the edges. They’re still all about being extremely slow and heavy, packing their punch into the relentless low end of their sound. If anything there’s slightly less jagged edge to the guitars as there was on their classic albums.
The attack isn’t continuous. It relents long enough to offer some breathing room, and changing between the different qualities of the two singers, Turner and guitarist Steve Von Till, offers a different angle even if it’s overall very similar.
I was a big fan of Isis (I’ll talk sometime about how unfortunate it was to be trying to make it as a band when the name you chose had just been co-opted loudly by terrorists). While Turner’s sound in Isis was a lot more guitar-forward, he blends well into the sludgy miasma of Neurosis without distracting.
The world has changed, the band has changed. But what hasn’t changed is that sometimes we all need to connect with the subconscious muck of our lives, and that’s something Neurosis has always helped people do.
