THE WORD AS LAW

Neurosis have really improved since their first album. The Word as Law is a much more mature album even though there is still a long way to how they sound today. I really enjoyed their debut album for it´s raw and primitive hardcore but The Word as Law takes that concept and builds on it to great effect.

The music is still very rooted in hardcore but as opposed to Pain of Mind there are also some very slow and heavy songs which means that The Word as Law is a much more varied album than Pain in Mind. There are even some acoustic parts in some of the songs. To What End? is is an example of one of the heavy songs on The Word as Law. It´s a really good song but the overall feeling is that on great dynamics when listening to The Word as Law. In this respect Neurosis reminds me of Carnivore. There are also some really fast and aggressive hardcore songs here and funny enough Neurosis have included four songs from their debut and re-recorded them for The Word as Law. Pain Of Mind, Grey, United Sheep and Life On Your Knees are all from the debut. All great aggressive hardcore songs. I guess Neurosis felt these songs were so good, that they wanted more people to hear them than the few who bought their badly distributed debut album.

In true hardcore fashion the vocals are delivered by two frontmen though. Scott Kelly´s deep almost growling vocals and Steve Von Till´s aggressive hystarical vocals. They complement each other well, and it has a very aggressive effect that almost sounds like shouting during a fight.

The musicianship is much better this time around and you can even talk about a certain tightness between the musicians.

The production has definitely also taken a few notches up since Pain of Mind which had a real garage band sound quality. The Word as Law sound much more professional without being polished. It´s still pretty raw in other words.

I´m very happy that I got this album from Neurosis and even though I understand they play a somewhat different style today this is still a very worthy release. I´m not a devoted fan myself but I appreciate The Word as Law greatly, so don´t let the fact that you wouldn´t normally like a Neurosis album keep you away from this one. If you like aggressive but varied hardcore this is the album for you. 3 stars is deserved even though there is nothing progressive about this release, but since it is here I´ll take the liberty to review it.