Reviews list for Neurosis - Through Silver in Blood (1996)

To my dismay, Neurosis decided to continue the more Industrial, tribal direction they explored on Enemy of the Sun. Gone are the Doomy leads and emotive atmospheres from Souls at Zero and the songs here employ overly repetitive, sample and industrial based soundscapes that end up boring and numb more than anything. The base rock music is bare and simple, and industrial noises are overlayed to give it the illusion of density and complexity, but a slightly focused mind will notice these same noises repeating over and over and over, gnawing away at one’s patience as they fail to build anything epic or moving.

Each transition basically switches one repeating industrial noise/sample for another, alternating between way-too-boring plodding drums or tribal beats. The guitars do little aside from add fuzzy ambiance in many places, what riffs remain are usually boring and uninspired.

The album is also filled with boring song sections or interludes of just samples and noise, breaking up the boring music with even more boring sections of people talking.

For how long and “varied” the songs are, they never seem to go anymore. What’s more, while it is arguably a very negative and oppressive album, it doesn’t really build any mood or convey emotion very well. It’s just a lot of plodding around, fuzz, and tribal madness that mashes together and comes out a dull gray on the other end.

I have a history with this album. This is what I think of when I think of Sludge for better or worse. Every couple of years when I go down my music rabbit holes I always see this album pop up on best of lists of various types. To this day I'm not sure why. Maybe because it is unique in it's own way, but going through all of the sludge albums lately there really isn't anything here in my opinion that stands out. It's more unusual I guess, with elements of industrial, punk, hardcore, and various other genres that it seems most sludge albums I've been listening to try to do something similar and maybe this is where they got the idea. There could be a lot to dissect here if you're interested, but to me listening it feels like they threw everything at the wall to see what sticks. Many does stick, and someone more invested than I can get a lot out of this but this is not for me.