TRIBES OF NEUROT

"Silver Blood Transmission" is overall one of the scariest albums you''ll ever hear.

Tribes Of Neurot is a relatively obscure side project of Sludge Metal legends Neurosis. A few of this project's albums are intended to be listened to along with a specific Neurosis album. The most famous example is "Grace", from Tribes Of Neurot, that goes along with the breathtaking "Times Of Grace". "Silver Blood Transmission" was released a year earlier what apparently is its twin album, the seminal masterpiece "Through Silver In Blood", but this project is so obscure it isn't really known if they really should be listened to together.

Tribes Of Neurot's music is a noisy kind of ambient, going most of the time towards an incredibly dark path; as a matter of fact, this album in particular, "Silver Blood Transmission", is one of the darkest pieces of music I've encountered. Creepy is to say the least; this is actually scary. Scary music isn't really that scary usually for me, a few bands like Suicide or, in my opinion, some Laurie Anderson's later work, are though indeed frightening. But I must also include in very small list a good chunk of this album. Not always it is that scary, sometimes some moments will almost comfort you from what you've heard just earlier. Personally, I was listening to this for the last time in the basement by myself at night with big speakers, and I had to skip the first track, something I've never done before. If this happens, it gets hard to judge whether the music is good or bad. I've come to the conclusion that, trying to be as neutral to personal emotions as possible, this album (and that song) isn't really solid, it's in many parts pretty boring and dull. Even because after the few tracks, the music isn't scary at all, maybe not even creepy. Just a little dull. I'm not a big Dark Ambient expert, but I had such good expectations for it, and this maybe was a bad place to start, but it is not giving me the feel I thought it was going to give.

"Primordial Uncarved Block" is the reason why I think Tribes Of Neurot is scary. This is the one track I had to skip, it was just unlistenable for me. The following track is creepy, but not at all unlistenable. It goes on for nine minutes, but it is sort of divided in different parts, where the music changes. This happens with a lot of these track, that's one good thing about this album. My favorite track here is the incredibly mysterious "The Accidental Process", the only track where I can sense some melody. The twenty four minute "Achtwan" has also some really cool moments, that sound like a Nordic call to arms, but it's just too long for a repetitive track. There are some other moments that might have caught my attention for a little while, but these tracks are just not worth mentioning.

If you want to get scared listening to music, by all means, listen to the first half of this album. But if you're not interested, and you don't like getting scared or don't like creepy music, avoid this. It was an OK release overall, it didn't move me in any way. I love ambient music, but this isn't really my cup of tea.