NEUROSIS — Enemy Of The Sun (review)

NEUROSIS — Enemy Of The Sun album cover Album · 1993 · Atmospheric Sludge Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
1.5/5 ·
SilentScream213
After the success of wildly innovative “Souls at Zero,” Neurosis seemed eager to one-up themselves in regard to making something that sounded different. The result was an album that focused more on being avant-garde and unique than it did on sounding good. Enemy of the Sun did indeed capture an entirely new sound, but it sacrificed a lot of what made their previous album so good.

The album is very heavy with samples, and has an overall tribal feel to it. The percussion is often focusing on tom-heavy fill beats, and the guitars usually create atmospheric walls rather than riffs. If I’m being honest, there’s not much of the album that sticks with me due to the fact that there are no memorable melodies of any sort. The atmosphere isn’t anything impressive either, for how much they focus on it; “Souls at Zero” did a great job of conveying a desperate struggle and cold, hopeless pain. Enemy of the Sun seems more eager to convey, I don’t know, existential ramblings of struggles in third world countries or something. It’s more bizarre than it is evocative.

That’s not to say the album is bad, as moments of grandeur are hiding among the vast boring parts. The first two tracks have some great atmosphere to them, and the guitars and keys use single notes to create excellent pangs of moodiness. Penultimate track “The Time of the Beasts” simply sounds much more akin to material on “Souls at Zero” and is therefore easily the best track, lush with various instrumentation from strings to horns to samples.

The album merely pales in comparison to what came before. Unless, of course, you enjoy tribal Avant-Garde Metal, in which case, you may like this quite a bit. For me, the departure from doomy monoliths is a hard decline.
Share this review
more

Review Comments

Post a public comment below | Send private message to the reviewer
Please login to post a shout
No shouts posted yet. Be the first member to do so above!

Review Index

Member Zone

Username:
Password:
Stay signed in

Metal Subgenres

Artists Alpha-index

MMA TOP 5 Metal ALBUMS

Rating by members, ranked by custom algorithm
Albums with 30 ratings and more
Master of Puppets Thrash Metal
METALLICA
Buy this album from our partners
Paranoid Heavy Metal
BLACK SABBATH
Buy this album from our partners
Moving Pictures Hard Rock
RUSH
Buy this album from our partners
Powerslave NWoBHM
IRON MAIDEN
Buy this album from our partners
Rising Heavy Metal
RAINBOW
Buy this album from our partners

New Metal Artists

New Metal Releases

The First Breath Is The Beginning Of Death Sludge Metal
IDIOT CHILD
Buy this album from MMA partners
Morbid Curiosities Sludge Metal
LUURCH
Buy this album from MMA partners
Asbestos Tiles Hardcore Punk
SUNDOWNER
Buy this album from MMA partners
Lysergic Ritual Sludge Metal
SUNDOWNER
Buy this album from MMA partners
Terra Preta Sludge Metal
TITANOBOA
Buy this album from MMA partners
More new releases

New Metal Online Videos

Agremorta - Adrocitas (Official Lyric Video)
AGREMORTA
Bosh66· 1 day ago
Agremorta - Ploratus Umbra (Official Lyric Video)
AGREMORTA
Bosh66· 1 day ago
Agremorta - Vertex Membrana (Official Lyric Video)
AGREMORTA
Bosh66· 1 day ago
HAIL SPIRIT NOIR - The Temple Of Curved Space (Official Track Stream)
HAIL SPIRIT NOIR
adg211288· 1 day ago
In Sulfur - The Gate (OFFICIAL VIDEO) 2022
IN SULFUR
Bosh66· 2 days ago
More videos

New MMA Metal Forum Topics

More in the forums

New Site interactions

More...

Latest Metal News

members-submitted

More in the forums

Social Media

Follow us
Follow us on Twitter Become a Facebook fan RSS Feed