Rock You Like a Hurricane

You lie in the snow / Cold but not dead / Stare into the sun / Long since its last heat. These lines begin “Burn,” the first track from Neurosis’s newest offering The Eye of Every Storm. A faint thunderclap can be heard behind guitarist / vocalist Steve Von Till’s first few words – and the storm has begun. Produced by Steve Albini (The Pixies, Nirvana), who has appeared on Neurosis’s last 3 albums, The Eye of Every Storm continues to develop and refine the band’s sound. Times of Grace, Albini’s first album with Neurosis, marked a slight sonic shift. The balance tipped more towards tightly woven subdued melodies and harmonies and away from the raw anger that fueled much of their earlier work. The anger isn’t gone, though. Instead, the band experiments with new ways of expressing emotion, traveling deeper down the human experience with their sounds and lyrics. Von Till has all but retired his harsh scream, now presenting a voice that sounds worn and tired, the almost half whisper of a man who has been near death and has returned to tell the tale.

Songs like “Left to Wander” possess that slow gloomy brutality that Neurosis has become known for throughout their career, but Albini’s production on this album, much like on A Sun That Never Sets, is much cleaner and more controlled than the walls of apocalyptic noise they were known for a decade ago. A growing progressive rock influence also manifests throughout the record , particularly with the atmospheric introduction to “Season in the Sky,” which gradually builds to an epic crescendo with the fury of hurricane winds and crashing waves.