"The eye of the storm." An interstice of calm at the tempest's center, the inert hub from which radial spikes of chaos erupt. It's a formulaic metaphor that requires little explanation. However, it's important to remember that clichés only become clichés by possessing a measure of intrinsic truth, a universal resonance that warrants their overexposure. That innovation is not the last word in achievement is a fact often overlooked in appraisals of value. The transmission of a heritage can be more aesthetically fulfilling to some listeners than a new permutation of aural components. The unrequited love poem is a cliché, yet we continue to read and write them. The bildungsroman narrative arc is a cliché, yet countless novels and films continue to potently employ it. Cognition is binary: The human desire for novelty is twinned with an equally imperative desire for continuity. All this is important to remember vis-à-vis Neurosis, who've been refining their formula for complexly symphonic disharmony over nearly two decades, and have won a legion of dedicated fans who wouldn't change a thing.
The Eye of Every Storm. I see what they mean, but have a hard time connecting the concept to this record. There are periods of respite within the maelstrom, but these are so tense and tightly coiled that they still imply an unabated cacophony. The quiet intervals don't impart the sense of fleeting tranquility one associates with the eye of a storm, and soon enough, the tortured, elongated riffs continue to topple ruins, uproot trees, move mountains and evaporate seas. Some records lull, some kick ass, others rock; this one simply lays waste. Mad Maxian, apocalyptic badlands music, death metal puked out at one-quarter speed and interleaved with weirdo folk interludes.
This is the fourth Neurosis record that Steve Albini has produced, and it's well-suited to the man who used to notch his metal plectrums and sing about Kim Gordon's panties. Albini's method of pristine sound separation within a metallic, murky overall aspect fits The Eye of Every Storm like a leather scabbard over a broadsword (caveat: unlike more palatable-for-cynics, epic noise-rock bands like Zeni Geva, Neurosis records contain the ghosts of clattering twenty-sided dice).
The primal percussion and piercing feedback of "Burn" gives way to a sinuous, snake-charming lead and the guttural assertion: "You lie in the snow/ Cold but not dead." The song is soon complicated with proggy guitar aerobics and sub-surface detonations, gaining intensity until it threatens to sunder load-bearing walls and bring the house down around your ears. "No River to Take Me Home" starts slower, guitars ebbing in staticky pools beneath the ominous vocals, with a central section of quietude (is this the elusive eye? I do not feel calmed) that is sharply juxtaposed with the reemergence of trudging drums and massive guitars. And the title track's eerie alien spacescape is 12 minutes of modulated drones, shifting minor key(board)s, and some of the album's less shredded singing.
If every storm has an eye, Neurosis' latest psychic thunderclap must follow suit. They just neglected to commit it to tape. It's not that there aren't quiet parts; it's that even in their midst, there's no sense of diffused tension. If there is an eye to this storm, it can only be the hole in the center of the CD-- undeniably there, but gallingly inaccessible and remote.
