Neurosis – Enemy Of The Sun Reissue – (Neurot)

So we’re now 25 years into the career of one of the most hugely inspirational contemporary Metal bands around and what better way to celebrate this monumental occasion then to re-issue the album that pretty much set the bar for any band that wanted to de tune a guitar and push things a little further than the thrash metal predecessors that were filling stadiums around the world at the time. Although this is a sound far too chaotic and evil to ever fill stadiums, this is an album that captured the imaginations of so many and inspired much great music after.

Enemy Of The Sun is a record darker than anything produced by Neurosis or anyone else for that matter, for the time this was a revelation in sound, from a band whose roots were laid quite firmly in the 80’s punk scene and although if you plough through their solid back catalogue of albums there is an obvious progression from punk to what we have here today, it was Enemy that really caught peoples attention and opened Neurosis up to a completely new fanbase. From that first time that eerie bassline is played over the pounding drums in Lost with writer Paul Bowles mumbling incoherently about life, you know that with the following tracks you will be treated to something most horrific. Sharp, nasty guitar lines and riffs dominate the album over gut wrenching screams, the album starts off a little slowly with Lost and Raze the Stray both with more of an emphasis on long build ups and sludgy riffs but this only entices the listener to continue on as you know something big and feverishly nasty is coming. Sure enough it does, by the time Lexicon has pelted your ears with its horrifically full frontal force of brutality, mixing progressive chord structures, dirgy riffs and painful screams most listeners would be able to take no more.

The mark that this album made on the music industry at the time may have been fairly minimal but the impact it has had on countless bands from that day and still today is mind boggling. If you’re still yet to experience Neurosis, this re-issue is a great place to start.

Words : Gordon Reid