Neurosis – An Undying Love For A Burning World (Neurot) – And so with very little warning and, on Spring Equinox, with little fanfare, Neurosis announced they were back with a new album and released in on the very same day as they announced it, “Spring Equinox 2026 – A time For New Beginnings We are Neurosis. Aaron Turner is our new bandmate. Our new album An Undying Love for a Burning World is out today” –
And so, with very little warning and, on Spring Equinox, back after ten years and everything must go and all that, the album sees the band joined by Aaron Turner on guitar and vocals and I guess the whole thing is in the attitude, the sentiment, the fact that they do it on the Spring Equinox, that they have that awareness. And that awareness, that attitude runs through everything here, it is why this isn’t just another heavy band making another dense record, not just another band making a comeback, that attitude matters.
“We need this, perhaps more than ever, and we suspect we are not alone. The trials and tribulations in our personal lives and as a band, combined with simply trying to navigate the insanity of our society, with the stress, anxiety, and isolation that come with it can be excruciating. Add to that the existential confusion and sorrow of the climate crisis and the sixth mass extinction. It is enough to cause you to completely lose your mind if you can’t find release or catharsis. This strange emotionally charged music has always been our method of trying to survive this and this is what we’ve always been singing about. When you have spent a lifetime engaged with these energies and utilizing this form of expression to purge and purify, it feels detrimental to our wellbeing to let it sit idle and neglected. This was now or never.”
I don’t know if it helps, I don’t know if it is too late for any of it or if Trump going to get us before the rest of it does, does anyone know what’s going on? Do I need to be standing here making art or writing about it? Writing about this art Neurosis make? I guess others have taken what they do further now, that all these things evolve, well that’s what i was thinking until Last Light took hold. Neurosis are still at the head of things and An Undying Love For A Burning World is still that epic thing, another of those massive albums Neurosis just seem to make with very little fuss. That sometimes beautiful thing, that sometimes confronting thing, that sometimes way too real nail hit firmly on the brutal head thing and yes, still that compelling thing in a way only Neurosis, even with a different voice, can do – “Aaron Turner (Sumac, Isis) a name whose legacy is intertwined with the band’s own and a true kindred spirit, joins the band on vocals and guitar” – he joins alongside vocalist/guitarist Steve Von Till, drummer Jason Roeder, bassist Dave Edwardson, and keyboard player Noah Landis and once again, as the band say themselves; “we are torn wide open”.
I can’t say I’ve ever really ‘liked’ Neurosis, I suspect they’re a band who don’t want or indeed need to be liked – I mean as a band, in terms of what they do – as people yes, I like the people, but as this thing, as this whole big thing that has been Neurosis for so so long now, I can’t say I like their music. I mean this is an excellent album, a fine fine piece of art, another fine Neurosis album, something cathartic, brutal, massive, full on, immense – extremely large, vast, of great in size. It isn’t something that needs to be ‘liked’ though, it’s something deeper than that. I ‘like’ lots of bands, this is deeper, this is something more, Neurosis have always been a little more than just another band to like.
And then there is the very nearly seventeen minutes of Last light and that twist you always get with a Neurosis album and time hanging heavy, never wavering, buried deep, burying itself deep in the dark of your mind, still a ravenous beast. Okay, I don’t make a habit of saying things like this, albums should be listened to properly, but if you’re not getting it yet, just jump to that last track and the Last Light, just give that a go before you say you don’t get it, then go back and give the rest of the proper time it derserves. Actually with the Last Light, as it unfolds, as we get right in there, ten or so minutes deep, at the end of this latest epic, Neurosis never sounded so (strangely) hopeful…
Is it the hope that gets you in the end? Good to have them back doing that thing they do, that neurosis thing, that undying love for a burning world thing they clearly (still) have, that epic thing that makes them far more than just a band to like. That closing piece is massive, the whole thing is. (sw)
THE ORGAN 