Posted in Whathaveyou on September 10th, 2026 by JJ Koczan
The San Francisco dates and Roadburn Festival next April were previously announced here, but what you see listed below from the PR wire represents the most significant touring Neurosis have undertaken since before the pandemic. The progenitors of post-metal go in support of their 2026 album, An Undying Love for a Burning World (review here), which marks their first outing with Aaron Turner (Sumac, ex-Isis, countless others) alongside Steve Von Till on vocals and guitar. From what I heard about their performance at this year’s Fire in the Mountains, it was an experience bordering on the religious, and honestly one would expect no less.
Heads up major markets, and note they’re playing Converge‘s Saddest Day in Boston as a December fly-in. That’s a hell of a bill as well, and I’ll be curious who ends up opening that L.A. show in January. Guess there’s time to find out:
NEUROSIS Announces New 2026 And 2027 Tour Dates In Support Of First New Album In A Decade, An Undying Love For A Burning World, Out Now On Neurot Recordings
The mighty NEUROSIS continues to book new live performances in support of their mammoth An Undying Love For A Burning World LP, today announcing tour dates through the end of the year and into 2027.
Following the already announced San Francisco shows on October 16th and 17th, NEUROSIS has just announced two shows in Brooklyn on October 30th and 31st, two Chicago shows on November 21st and 22nd, two Portland shows on November 27th and 28th, a Seattle show November 29th, a set at Converge’s Saddest Day in Boston on December 12th, and a Los Angeles performance on January 2nd. They will also make their return to play two sets at Roadburn Festival in the Netherlands in April of 2027.
General ticket sales for the new shows begin this Friday, September 11th at 10am local time. Both San Francisco shows are sold out. Expect to see more NEUROSIS live announcements over the coming months.
NEUROSIS Tour Dates: 10/16/2026 The Fillmore – San Francisco, CA w/ Terry Gross 10/17/2026 The Fillmore – San Francisco, CA w/ Kowloon Walled City 10/30/2026 Warsaw – Brooklyn, NY w/ Uniform 10/31/2026 Warsaw – Brooklyn, NY w/ Primitive Man 11/21/2026 Metro – Chicago, IL w/ Mr. Phylzzz 11/22/2026 Metro – Chicago, IL w/ Primitive Man 11/27/2026 Revolution Hall – Portland, OR w/ special guests TBA, Great Falls 11/28/2026 Revolution Hall – Portland, OR w/ special guests TBA, Trigger Object 11/29/2026 Showbox SODO – Seattle, WA w/ special guests TBA, Great Falls 12/12/2026 Converge’s Saddest Day @ Roadrunner – Boston, MA w/ Converge, Coalesce, more 1/02/2027 The Wiltern – Los Angeles, CA w/ Special Guests TBA 4/17/2027 Roadburn Festival – Tilburg, NL w/ Emma Ruth Rundle, more
Posted in Whathaveyou on August 19th, 2026 by JJ Koczan
Having already played Fire in the Mountains this summer and announced a limited selection of live dates, for the Fall, post-metal innovators Neurosis will return to Roadburn 2027 next Spring in Tilburg, the Netherlands. The band and festival are long associated, have journeyed together across years where the band has curated (2010; killer) and celebrated their 30th anniversary (2016; two extended sets, both killer), and so on. As they move into their new, post-Scott Kelly era with Steve Von Till and Aaron Turner sharing guitar/vocal duties — you probably heard something about that earlier this year — Roadburn seems like a natural home for an initial European foray.
I don’t think Neurosis at any point will be a hard-touring band again. They haven’t been one in at least two decades. So if you want to see them, see them when you can. And having seen Neurosis at Roadburn on multiple occasions, I’ll tell you there’s nothing quite like it that I’ve encountered. A rare total clicking of band and environment. It just makes sense.
I’m still catching up from last week’s news, as you have probably been able to tell because I know you’re way more on top of your stuff than I am. Roadburn has announced Emma Ruth Rundle for a full-album performance and a couple other black metally-type outfits for the lineup as well, and that quick update is also below.
From the PR wire:
NEUROSIS RETURN TO EUROPE TO PLAY ROADBURN 2027
AN UNDYING LOVE FOR A BURNING WORLD NOW AVAILABLE
Following Neurosis’ return to the stage at Fire in the Mountains festival, the band are happy to announce their return to Europe next year, with their appearance at Roadburn festival in Tilburg, April 2027.
Steve Von Till comments: “There are few places in the world that feel like home to our music the way Roadburn does; where we are in the company of kindred spirits who share our endless obsession for emotional, genre defying, independent heavy music. Roadburn is a place where the fourth wall, that imaginary boundary between artists and audience, dissolves as we all become one: a community that gathers together to honor and celebrate the healing power of intense dark music as a way to stay sane in an insane world. Now, as we have re-emerged from the darkness with the album of our lives, we can’t imagine making our return to Europe in any place other than Roadburn.”
Roadburn adds, “From our perspective too, it is hard to imagine Neurosis making their live return in Europe anywhere other than here with us – call us biased, but this feels right. Life is not the same as it was the last time Neurosis had their name on a Roadburn poster – many things have changed in the intervening years, here in this cocoon of heavy music, as well as out there in the world – but knowing that this bond between us remains is a source of comfort and a genuine reason to celebrate.”
An Undying Love For A Burning World is an epic album of colossal hypnotism – beautiful, fearsome and utterly compelling in a way that only Neurosis can be. 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, alongside vocalist/guitarist Steve Von Till, drummer Jason Roeder, bassist Dave Edwardson, and keyboard player Noah Landis.
Neurosis have never been afraid of change, and here they embrace endless regeneration, surrendering to the emotional exorcism through heaviness and distortion that their music incites. Just as the universe tends towards balance, Neurosis’ cacophony of noise, rhythm and dissonance always resolves towards moments of beauty. The addition of Turner’s powerful vocals and wildly creative and unhinged approach to guitar proves to be a vital force as Neurosis find themselves again at the mercy of evolution and expression.
—
Emma Ruth Rundle, Sadness and Trhä announced for Roadburn 2027
Roadburn has announced three further artists for the 2027 line up, following last week’s unveiling of two sets by Neurosis. Emma Ruth Rundle will return to Tilburg for a full playthrough of her upcoming new album, These Killing Times. Her last appearance at Roadburn in 2022 resulted in a spellbinding live album, Engine of Hell Live at Roadburn. The 2027 line up will also feature the debut European performances from blackgaze project Sadness and black metal ensemble Trhä. The projects are both the brainchild of Damián Ojeda – a prolific musician in the underground scene.
The line up for Roadburn 2027 so far is:
Neurosis Emma Ruth Rundle performing These Killing Times Sadness Trhä
Posted in Whathaveyou on July 20th, 2026 by JJ Koczan
I had a friend tell me this week she was thinking about driving to Asheville to see Neurosis there with Acid Bath, Kylesa and the Melvins. Indeed, that’s a hell of a show, and probably worth the nine hours in the car or whatever it is from New Jersey. Before that, Neurosis feature this week at Fire in the Mountains, alongside the reunited SubRosa and an enviable slew of others, and they’ve also got two shows in October that one assumes will be joined by more. I don’t think Neurosis are going to spend a month on the road as they herald An Undying Love for a Burning World (review here), their decade-later, marquee-whether-they-like-it-or-not return with Aaron Turner on guitar/vocals alongside Steve Von Till, so when you can see them, consider doing so.
This news came in last week, so you’ll see I bracketed a couple changes in tense on when tickets are available. They’re available now, is the bottom line.
From the PR wire:
NEUROSIS Announces Upcoming Performances + Band To Play Fire In The Mountains Next Week; Celebrated First New Album In A Decade, An Undying Love For A Burning World, Out Now On Neurot Recordings
NEUROSIS has confirmed several new live performances for the months ahead, in support of their new album, An Undying Love For A Burning World.
The return of NEUROSIS and surprise release of their first new album in a decade, An Undying Love For A Burning World, tore a hole in the sky in March. The album immediately became fan favorite in the band’s groundbreaking discography, heralded as one of the year’s best immediately upon its release. With the album’s unexpected release, the band also declared their return to the stage, announcing their first show in seven years at Fire In The Mountains, which takes place next week on the traditional lands of the Blackfeet Nation in Montana by special invitation of Firekeeper Alliance, a non-profit dedicated to reducing youth suicide in Indian Country. And today, the next several performances have been announced.
NEUROSIS has been invited to play at Hellbender by The Orange Peel in Asheville, North Carolina on September 5th, joining Acid Bath, Melvins, and Kylesa that night.
And then, NEUROSIS will perform two very special homecoming shows at the historic Fillmore in San Francisco on October 16th and 17th, celebrating their return to the Bay Area where the band was formed. Tickets for these shows [went] on sale [last] Friday at 10am PDT.
NEUROSIS Live: 7/25/2026 Fire In The Mountains @ Red Eagle Campground – Blackfeet Nation, MT 9/05/2026 Hellbender by The Orange Peel – Asheville, NC w/ Acid Bath, Melvins, Kylesa 10/16/2026 The Fillmore – San Francisco, CA 10/17/2026 The Fillmore – San Francisco, CA
Expect to see additional NEUROSIS live announcements over the weeks ahead.
Posted in Reviews on March 27th, 2026 by JJ Koczan
Probably safe to assume that nobody even remotely aware of how it went down felt good about the way Neurosis ended, with 30-plus years of brutally shamanic musical healing undone in an afternoon by founding guitarist/vocalist Scott Kelly confessing that he’d been abusing his family for years. That was April 2022, and at the time, the band saidKelly had already been out of the lineup for three years and that they didn’t mention it out of respect to his family’s request.
They never said, “we’re done as a band,” but for four years, Neurosis basically went dark. Guitarist/vocalist Steve Von Till continued solo work, their label Neurot Recordings stayed open with new releases, but keyboardist/sampler Noah Landis, drummer Jason Roeder (now ex-Sleep, much to that band’s inevitable loss whenever they come back) and bassist/backing vocalist Dave Edwardson — the latter two also founding members of Neurosis — hadn’t been heard from in years, until An Undying Love for a Burning World.
Aaron Turner, formerly of post-metal innovators Isis, presently of Sumac and sundry other projects and collaborations, is arguably the best person on the planet for the guitarist/vocalist job, and through the eight songs and 63 minutes of An Undying Love for a Burning World, he adds to the songs not in the manner of doing a Scott Kelly impression, but in a way true to his own work, whether it’s the way his voice pairs with Von Till‘s in the quiet middle of closer “Last Light,” the low growl (more Edwardson than anyone, if we’re going by in-Neurosis comparisons) punctuating the lurch in post-intro leadoff “Mirror Deep,” both new and reminiscent of something the band might’ve done on 1992’s Souls at Zero (reissue review here), or any number of instrumental nuances that could be read as his contribution.
The album sounds like he took part in the writing, and one would expect a veteran band like Neurosis to know that, if they were going to do this, the creative aspect needed to be there from everybody. It gives An Undying Love for a Burning World a forward-looking cast, and while Turner wouldn’t have been the only candidate for that job — YOB‘s Mike Schiedt, The Keening/SubRosa‘s Rebecca Vernon, and Jackie Perez-Gratz (Grayceon), the latter of whom has done a fair amount of recording with the band over the years, come to mind as others — his inclusion pushes Neurosis forward in ways they very much needed to move forward if they were going to release music again.
It was a surprise drop and the internet broke. “The hive lost its fucking mind,” as the swaying, four-minute cut “Untethered” might say. We all became that one mean tweet, or at least those who already weren’t. Having not been cool enough to be in on the secret for the last year or however long they were making the record — you probably were, and cheers to that — I was blindsided by it, and so I remain. The last Neurosis album was issued a 10 years ago, 2016’s Fires Within Fires (review here), and as big a change as bringing Turner is to the sound and dynamic of the band — more low growls, stark turns, and it’s 2026 and even Neurosis gotta harmonize — the 2024 passing of producer Steve Albini, who helmed six consecutive Neurosis full-lengths, from 1999’s Times of Grace through Fires Within Fires and just the fact that anyone else is sitting in that chair at the board, also lends An Undying Love for a Burning World a different feel, and one less directly stage-minded. That is not to take away from Scott Evans‘ work filling those shoes here. It’s just one more thing to be surprised by along the way.
“Untethered” lands as the jumping off point into the extended closing duo of “In the Waiting Hours” (10:16) and the multiple-movement “Last Light” (16:58), which feel complementary and continuing a thread through an imagined progression of time from the earlier “First Red Rays.” If that’s a theme, it’s largely unstated. The 53-second intro “We Are Torn Wide Open” is comprised of intertwining layers of voice, delay effects and such, and its lyrics are a treatise:
We Are Torn Wide Open
The separation that burns our hearts Is the root of all our disease We’ve forgotten how to live, so we suffer We’ve forgotten how to struggle, so we suffer We’ve forgotten how to die, so we suffer We’ve forgotten we are wild, so we suffer We exist in isolation, so we suffer
The dissonance is deafening
Does anyone, I wonder, feel right now like they’ve forgotten how to struggle? Everything costs four times as much as it did last time Neurosis put out an album. Civil liberties are trampled on daily if not hourly, human beings are being locked in warehouses, the US is at fucking war — again — and there is no sign of anything on any level getting better in my lifetime. But ‘we’ haven’t forgotten how to live, we’re just too busy at work. Or, you know, dying. This kind of self-agreeing dude-philosophy positing that if we all went out in the woods in camo and shot a deer we’d rediscover our humanity speaks from a position of privilege and discounts the actual oppression of the day, whether that’s in Gaza, or Kansas, or your own mind.
It makes great, podcast-ready oneliners, but do human beings shitting in the corners of the warehouses where they’re being indefinitely detained without legal due process feel like they’ve forgotten how to struggle? To die? Maybe it isn’t that ‘we’ have forgotten how to struggle, live wild, and perish somehow fulfilled, but that we’re blind to these things because everything is struggle. Unable to see the forest for the trees, if you’d like a woodsy cliché. The problem is capitalism. These things aren’t forgotten. They’ve been stolen. From you, ‘we,’ and everyone. If you feel isolated, that’s on purpose. The world burning is on purpose.
What ensues as “Mirror Deep” and “First Red Rays” pick up from that lead-in is both signature Neurosis and something new brought to that established pattern — which, by the way, is also part of the pattern itself; it’s not like Neurosis were putting out the same record every other year between 1986 and 2016; change has always been the order — and signature lurch. Both songs are intense on balance, both lead the listener deeper into the procession and flow, and the crush is cathartic as a sheer onslaught and coupled by intricate ambience between Turner‘s added synth to Landis‘, Von Till‘s various now-the-guitar-sounds-like-it’s-made-of-molten-metal effects and I won’t claim to know what else. The subsequent “Blind” feels more open, speaking more to releases like 2012’s Honor Found in Decay or 2004’s The Eye of Every Storm (discussed here), and finds Von Till and Turner singing together as a preface for “Last Light” to come.
“Seething and Scattered” (I think) brings Edwardson into a triad call-and-response across channels that adds to the urgency of the recaptured churn, and the keyboardy feel of the break distinguishes it, as well as the hard-toms as Roeder builds the tension back up to the noisy, all-in finish, slamming down and pausing only briefly before “Untethered” picks up the momentum. The aforementioned four-minute track is the shortest, aside from “We Are Torn Wide Open,” and like “Mirror Deep” could make a fitting introduction for listeners to discover how the shifts in Neurosis lineup have played out in their sound. It’s also the most satisfying rumble of bass on An Undying Love for a Burning World, and if you told me that was how it wound up on the record, I would absolutely believe you.
Across the span, the songs work together to create the broader reality of the whole album, and from “Mirror Deep” onward, the immersion is a plunge for those willing to take it. Perhaps nowhere more so than on “In the Waiting Hours” and “Last Light,” which despite having their own intentions stand together in my mind so that’s how I’m putting them. They’re a few minutes short of half the total runtime, but are significant portion of it just the same, and with “Untethered” on side C they make up the entirety of the 2LP edition’s second platter, the closer standing alone as it invariably would.
A speedy electronic pulse permeates “Last Light” at the beginning and returns at the end, but that does little to tell you the scope of the song itself. Turner growls, and howls, over the first couple minutes before at 2:27 the crush begins anew, and the nod grows more weighted until a long midsection break seems to be running multiple experiments at the same time. Fair enough as a setup for the last thrust, but Neurosis by then have done big finishes multiple times over, and while “Last Light” sees its tonal crux return, they eschew ‘grand finale’-type posturing or onslaught just for its own sake. It’s always been about something deeper, and so it still seems to be.
Like many who will take it on, I was surprised to have a new Neurosis album show up, and while I still have questions — for example, Scott Kelly was a founding member of this band and invariably had or has a stake in the LLC that almost surely legally binds them; does he get a cut from this or the back catalog at this point? — and I still feel like I’m getting to know the songs on An Undying Love for a Burning World, I recognize that feeling as being part and parcel to the experience of listening to Neurosis. They’ve never put out disposable records, or something to hear while the hype was hot and then put away and forget. In the best case, you live with their music, and it changes you and how you hear it changes over time. After four years of not having that and a decade on from their last release, four decades on from their outset, their return makes it clear how much it’s been missed.
Neurosis, An Undying Love for a Burning World (2026)
Posted in Whathaveyou on August 29th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
The remaining members of post-metal progenitors Neurosis have responded to guitarist/vocalist Scott Kelly’s admission of years of familial abuse and domestic violence. Guess they more or less had to.
They leave it open as to what they may or may not do as a band, and yeah, Neurosis as you knew it before this weekend is probably done. And the band says so, Kelly said so in his widely-regarded-as-manipulative-bullshit statement this weekend, and I agree that this is bigger than a band. But also, Neurosis, this group of people, have influenced quite literally thousands of other artists. The ripple effect will be significant, aesthetically, economically, and within this particular creative niche, culturally.
The betrayal here is multi-tiered and visceral. As a fan, someone who supported Neurosis fiscally and promoted their work to others, I feel angry and, to the use the band’s word, disgusted, and I don’t know what to say about the statement below, about the timing on who knew what when and all that. They’re quick to distance themselves from Kelly, of course, but things are rarely ever so cut and dry, and the trust that was there, that what you were hearing on a Neurosis album was the truest representation of these artists as people is simply gone.
I would like to tell you I’ll never talk about this again, fuck this guy, he’s done, move on, but that seems optimistic.
Here’s what the band had to say:
A STATEMENT FROM NEUROSIS
We cannot overstate the level of disgust and disappointment we feel for a man who we once called Brother.
As a band, we parted ways with Scott Kelly at the end of 2019 after learning about severe acts of abuse he committed towards his family over the previous years. In the past, Scott had disclosed his marital difficulties and acts of verbal abuse, as well as his intention to get help and change his behaviors. The information we learned in 2019 made it clear Scott had crossed a line and there was no way back. We did not share this information out of respect for his wife’s direct request for privacy, and to honor the family’s wish not to let their experience become gossip in a music magazine. With Scott’s Facebook post of August 27, 2022 disclosing much of this information publicly, we can finally say what we believe needs to be said.
For the last twenty years we have lived far apart from one another and only saw Scott when meeting up to work on music or play shows. We had no idea what the reality was for his family when we were not around. By Scott’s own admission, his abuse was intentional, targeted, and a closely guarded secret – even from those of us closest to him.
Once we learned of his abuse it was difficult to reconcile the horrible information with the person we thought we knew. It’s not surprising he hid the abuse for so long because it is a betrayal of our ethics as bandmates, partners, parents, and human beings.
Since 2019, we have made numerous attempts to contact Scott. We wanted to have an honest talk about the status of the band and find out how he and his family were doing, but he has refused to speak with us for three years. And, in what we now see clearly to be a pattern, Scott refused to take responsibility for his actions. Having been through so much with someone for more than 35 years, one would expect some amount of closure, or at the very least a response.
Now, without returning any of the calls, texts, or e-mails of his bandmates and friends, Scott has made a public post about the situation. To us, this decision seems like another attempt at manipulation, another opportunity for his narcissism to control the narrative. Don’t allow Scott to make this about himself, it’s about the abuse his family has suffered.
Usually, we would view public openness and honesty about mental illness as brave and even productive. We just don’t believe that is the case here.
There is nothing brave about systematically abusing your wife and children.
There is nothing brave about confessing wrongdoing when you have not done the work to change your behavior.
There is nothing brave about refusing to speak honestly, or speak at all, with one’s closest friends and bandmates, people who have supported you and stuck by you for most of your life.
Compared to the impact of Scott’s actions on his family, the impact on our band pales in significance. Nevertheless, with the heartbreak and horror we also grieve for the loss of our life’s work and a legacy that was sacred to us.
Again, our primary concern is for the safety and well-being of Scott’s wife and children, as well as anyone else in a similar situation. If someone you know is experiencing domestic violence or abuse, please reach out to one of the many local or national resources available. One national resource is:
National Domestic Violence Hotline 1-800-799-7233 www.thehotline.org
If you or someone you know is suffering from mental health issues that could make you a danger to yourself or others, please get help before you hurt yourself or the people you love. One resource for that is: www.988lifeline.org
This is the only statement we plan to make about this issue. In due course, when it’s appropriate, we will provide more information about our future musical endeavors, but that time is not now.
Posted in Whathaveyou on August 28th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
This, obviously, is bigger than music. This is a human being and their family. Given the circumstances, it doesn’t feel right to speculate what might happen with Neurosis or any of his other projects in the longer term, so I’ll just say that if this was the situation, he’s probably right to step back. We all know that ‘permanent’ is a fluid idea when it comes to things like band breakups and retirements, so if you’re down about the prospect of no more music from Kelly, first, maybe you’ve missed the point a little and want to look at that, and second, never say never. But again, there are larger concerns at play here.
Best to Scott Kelly’s family on behalf of this site and myself, and hope for healing all around.
If you or someone you know is suffering under domestic violence, the National Domestic Violence Hotline is 800-799-7233. And no, a hotline isn’t enough and one can feel trapped, paralyzed, terrorized. It happens every day. But if that’s you, know that you’re not alone no matter how much you’ve been made to feel you are.
From social media:
Scott Kelly on abusing family and retiring from music:
Due to recent events, I feel that I clearly need to address some rumors and set the record straight. For the past several years I have engaged in the emotional, financial, verbal and physical abuse of my wife and younger children. When I became paranoid that people were going to find out, I found ways to keep my wife and kids from work and school and created divisions with friends and family members. I became obsessed with control and used threats, manipulation, threats of self-harm and suicide, inflicted physical damage on people and their reputations all to keep that control. When I knew my wife was going to leave I tried to convince her and others that I was crazy, and seeing things, and that I did not know what I was doing. She tried to help me with therapy and psychiatrists. My lies and deceptions fell apart in front of the professionals. When my wife finally tried to leave, I stalked and harassed her day and night and caused her and our youngest to live in a constant state of fear. I have lied or told half truths to so many people about so much of this that I can’t keep track of them. I don’t want to lie about any of this anymore. I love my wife to no end. She is the best person that I know. She is intensely honest, loving and good to her core. This letter is massive simplification of the irreparable damage I have caused and the unforgivable things that I’ve done to her and our kids. To say more in this public forum would not help anyone. As the truth has started to leak out there have been people who have tried to blame my wife for my abuse to give me an out and people who have spread ridiculous and damaging rumors about her. This is fucked. She deserves so much better. If you are adopting this mentality or spreading these rumors you need to fucking stop. I have some serious issues that I am dealing with and I have separated myself from anyone who is connected with my public life so that I can focus on my own toxic shit. When my wife has been kind enough to answer questions about my absence, she has faced crazy accusations. There was a recent situation that was so fucked up that it necessitated immediate action on my part to set the record straight. My wife absolutely speaks for me in my absence and I have already said she is intensely honest. If you don’t want the truth definitely don’t ask her questions. Additionally it is never appropriate to approach or question our children.
I know now that choosing to live a public life and be onstage was the worst decision that I could have made given the way that I am. I have hidden behind the attention and unfounded respect and adulation. I used my social position to directly and indirectly manipulate all of you and to hide the abuse of my family. I got satisfaction from my deception and perceived control of everyone involved. I am 100% permanently retired from being a professional musician. Some people can be in a scene like this where there is no accountability and maintain their integrity. I cannot. My sole focus for the rest of my life is on taking care of my family, allowing them safe space to heal and rebuilding their trust. I hope putting this out there will protect my wife from further attacks and finally allow my family some peace.
Posted in Whathaveyou on February 3rd, 2022 by JJ Koczan
If you were curious as to how Scott Kelly of Neurosis has spent the pandemic, this collaboration with Mathieu Vandekerckhove and Colin H. van Eeckhout of Amenra and Igor Cavalera (ex-Sepultura, Cavalera Conspiracy, Petbrick, etc.) would seem to answer the question. And yes, that’s all well and good — a band with pedigree. Amenra have released stuff through Neurot, toured with Neurosis and Deafbrick, on which Cavalera played, was on Neurot as well, so yeah, it’s not outside the realm of possibility that they’d collaborate at some point.
Honestly, what I have more trouble with here is the assertion that the band “formed in 2017.” Come on. Vandekerckhove and Kelly did a thing at that point, but they called the band Absent in Body and they called the record Plague God, and I have to wonder what’s wrong with just saying “this is a pandemic project?” Many, many people have seen lives and livelihoods upended, and everyone has been affected one way or the other. So maybe some creativity got routed into something new building on the one-off they’d done a few years earlier. From where I sit, that’s about the only good thing to come out of the last two years of this bullshit.
Video’s great. Of course it is. One more disc to buy:
ABSENT IN BODY (current and former members of AMENRA, NEUROSIS, SEPULTURA) ANNOUNCE DEBUT ALBUM, PLAGUE GOD, OUT MARCH 25
ABSENT IN BODY make their Relapse Records debut with the terrifying new album Plague God, out March 25, 2022 on LP/CD/CS/Digital. Watch “The Acres/The Ache” music video and pre-order AT THIS LOCATION:https://orcd.co/absentinbody
Initially the brainchild of AMENRA guitarist Mathieu J. Vandekerckhove, and NEUROSIS vocalist/guitarist Scott Kelly, ABSENT IN BODY formed in 2017. Immediately recognizing their kinship, and with AMENRA frontman Colin H. Van Eeckhout brought in on vocals and bass, what emerged is a reflection of the intervening years of turbulence, extending it’s scope as it navigates across five stretches of unstable terrain. From the opening Rise From Ruins with Sepultura drummer, Iggor Cavelera’s tribal beat emerging from foreboding, near-subsonic oscillations to explode in a tide of corrosive riffs and feral howls, through Sarin’s steadfast, procession-through-purgatory groove, to The Half Rising Man’s matrix of organic/mechanic evolution, it’s an album in constant dialogue between the animalistic, the human and the industrial, and a hunger to distill a truth, something unpolluted from the fray.
Plague God doesn’t just give voice to these moments of truth, but in the band’s deep kinship integral to every claustrophobic judder, every stretch of atmospheric dread and helpless alias assumed, lies a freedom we both forget and attain at our peril.
Mathieu Vandekerckhove comments:
“We had not imposed any limitations or boundaries on ourselves to create this music. Everything happened without any compromise, we gathered and let inspiration run freely. It is the beauty and the strength of this album.”
Iggor Cavalera comments:
“It feels great to collaborate with such forward-thinking minds like Colin, Mathieu, and Scott on AIB. The music is dense and slowly brutal, very similar to the times we are living.”
You might recall that the last episode of The Obelisk Show on Gimme Metal was a look at the beginnings of Neurosis’ career, the first part of a deep-dive into their storied and wildly influential catalog. Well, as I said we would, we’re picking up where we left off. That was 2001’s A Sun That Never Sets, and this episode starts with the opening track of The Eye of Every Storm, which pushed those drone impulses even further and became the most spacious record the band has done to-date.
From there, we move chronologically into Given to the Rising and Honor Found in Decay as they renewed their commitment to crushing while still pushing into ever more atmospheric tendencies, having created the genre post-metal along the way, and ultimately ending with Fires Within Fires, their latest work, which encompassed a rawer approach nodding to the whole of what their sound has come to encompass over their 30-plus years. We close with “The Doorway” from Live at Roadburm 2007 as well to emphasize just how much of their impact is made on the stage. If you’ve never seen them, the answer is a lot of it.
Thanks for listening and/or reading. I hope you enjoy.
The Obelisk Show airs 5PM Eastern today on the Gimme app or at: http://gimmemetal.com
Full playlist:
The Obelisk Show – 07.09.21
Neurosis
Burn
The Eye of Every Storm
Neurosis
The Eye of Every Storm
The Eye of Every Storm
Neurosis
A Season in the Sky
The Eye of Every Storm
Neurosis
Given to the Rising
Given to the Rising
Neurosis
To the Wind
Given to the Rising
VT
Neurosis
Distill (Watching the Swarm)
Given to the Rising
Neurosis
We All Rage in Gold
Honor Found in Decay
Neurosis
Bleeding the Pigs
Honor Found in Decay
Neurosis
Raise the Dawn
Honor Found in Decay
VT
Neurosis
A Shadow Memory
Fires Within Fires
Neurosis
Broken Ground
Fires Within Fires
Neurosis
Reach
Fires Within Fires
VT
Neurosis
The Doorway
Live at Roadburn 2007
The Obelisk Show on Gimme Metal airs every Friday 5PM Eastern, with replays Sunday at 7PM Eastern. Next new episode is July 23 (subject to change). Thanks for listening if you do.
