ENEMY OF THE SUN

"Enemy Of The Sun" has high ambitions, but less effective results.

After the successful and amazingly done "Souls At Zero", Neurosis takes a step forward with "Enemy Of The Sun" the following year with higher ambitions, but with a lot less effective results, unfortunately.

"Enemy Of The Sun" is a step forward because it is overall more experimental than the previous album, exploring a lot of new sounds; there's more sampling, there's a very interesting tribal vibe thanks to the more tom-focused drums, there's a much wider and open sound, abandoning the claustrophobic feel in "Souls At Zero" and using effects such as reverb; this sound will be perfected with the following album "Through Silver In Blood". However, besides these things, the music does have a lot of things in common with the previous album, thus it feels like "Enemy Of The Sun" is its natural continuation.

But this album does not have the exciting, ear-dragging feel I hoped for. As a matter of fact, I get bored after the first songs, which aren't bad at all. The melodies just aren't doing it for me most of the time, and the face-melting sound that Neurosis is so famous for is just not here, even though it attempts to be present. Even the instrumentation feels like its held down a bit, and the production isn't really helping.

I cannot deny though that interesting moments are present, especially in the first half: the opener "Lost" is a mysterious, nine minute piece that is smothered in a pretty cool atmosphere, just like the even better track "Raze The Stray", which features a beautiful female vocal in the intro and along some parts that follow. "Lexicon" is also an interesting track, probably the most hypnotizing song off the album. But the title track and "The Time Of The Beasts" don't say much for me at all, and the final track "Cleanse", which is fifteen minutes in some versions of the album, but I have the twenty six minute version, is just boring, wannabe tribal drumming that occasionally changes a bit, until it reaches the fourteenth minute, where an annoying vocal loop repeats itself for ten, unbearably long minutes.

Overall, the album is pretty good, but its barely saved by those few tracks in the beginning of the album; It has a few dull moments that I surely do not want to revisit for a while. I recommend it to the fans of the genre and of Neurosis, but not to anybody else.

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