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Storm warning By J.H. Tompkins IT WAS WEDNESDAY night at Aquarius Records in San Francisco, and a young man – with hair bringing to mind an off-brand Robert Smith and wearing a knee-length black coat, form-fitting rayon print shirt, and lace-up black boots that ran halfway up his calves – leaned against the checkout counter, performing improvised spoken word for a crowd of four: a rapt, round-faced Scandinavian tourist, the store clerk, my friend Matt, and me. He rattled on about heavy metal, heavy music, and hard times for 20 dazzling minutes, and since he seemed to be taking requests, I called out "Jarboe," referring to the onetime Swans collaborator. "With Neurosis?" he asked, without breaking stride. "It's really great." If you've walked into Aquarius, you've at least heard of Neurosis, the Oakland collective-band that during their 14-some years of existence have combined punk energy and a visionary, spiritually tinged populism with an edgy, ever evolving artistic sensibility that explores new territory with each new album. When I dropped the just-released Eye of Every Storm (Neurot) into my heavy friend's micro-pause, he said, "Every Neurosis album since Souls at Zero has been my favorite. What can I say?" His presence demanded the kind of muted but constant attention from the clerk that is generally accorded street people and lunatics, and his wpm seemed to be rooted in modern chemistry, but I couldn't figure out where he fit into the equation. Ironically, his fast-twitch persona clashed with a band whose music moves along at a pace that can be charitably described as deliberate. And his dressed-for-the-party threads were a trifle loud when compared to those of musicians whose presence is understated and – if this is possible given an artistic vision of epic dimension – low-key. While my guess is that longtime Neurosis fans are most excited about The Eye of Every Storm, it's Neurosis and Jarboe, the band's 2003 tape-trading collaboration with Jarboe, which took some years to bear fruit, that offers at least some of the ingredients missing from much contemporary art. It's full of surprise and, at its best, packs an uncompromising challenge. Those qualities alone demand respect, but there's one moment – on the opening track, "Within" – that reeks of exhilarating redneck blasphemy. An insistent, bottom-driven keyboard figure suddenly melts down at a spot where an explosive outburst of kick drums mutates into a vaguely ominous burst of noise, over which Jarboe – in thick rural drawl – intones, "I tell you, if God wants to take me, he will," after which she whispers, in a voice dripping with lust and resignation, "Can't you see, he's coming." Popular culture – neck-deep in add-water atheism, trust-fund nihilism, and the kind of ignorance modern media can create – has a malignancy born of the easy answer. This collaboration, in stark contrast, has the mark of life lived. At times it's stunning, and I don't use the word lightly. The Eye of Every Storm continues the band's exploration of the subtle complexities of sonic textures, at the expense of the hard-driving sounds that energized, for instance, Souls at Zero (Neurot, 1992). If somewhere, locked in the early teen years of every hard rock fan, there's a soft spot for AC/DC's Highway to Hell, this album bears witness to how costly and complicated that journey would prove to be. In fact, the multitude of heavy music Web sites and bulletin boards bear the mark of a generation gap that surfaces as an aesthetic difference; as the genre splinters into a multitude of subgenres, each intricately articulated, interviews with Neurosis members emphasize not difference but the passion and commitment the best musicians of any genre share. They've added thick layers of synthesized and sampled sound to a once guitar-driven music, creating along the way a label – Neurot – to facilitate ambient exploration. And they've slowed down their music to create near-hypnotic grooves, provoking meditative thought to counter the lure of forces that undercut honest expression and reception. Eye is full of synthesizers and ambient noise, but rather than melting everything down to a homogenized throwaway, the thick passages set up blistering bursts of drums and hard, finely etched guitar chords that cut through the tapestry like a sword. If the former passages are ominous, the latter are a violent payoff – bad dreams come true. "Bridges" moves so slowly through 11 impossibly suspenseful minutes that you almost want to scream – until the narcotic gauze suddenly disappears in a burst of dense, deafening noise, and you realize it wasn't so bad after all. If the band are saying anything, it's that there are no rules to hide behind. In today's black-and-white world, they couldn't offer a greater challenge. They blur the once clearly articulated role for each instrument, they refuse to advocate or embrace carefully delineated stylistic turf or serve up easily identified heroes and villains, and they underscore these ambiguities by composing music that only rarely offers clear punctuation to the swirling mix of sound. Neurosis, it seems, aren't looking for fans but for fellow travelers to follow them into the eye of the storm. Neurosis play an extended set with Jarboe July 21, 9 p.m., Great American Music Hall, 859 O'Farrell, S.F. $15. (415) 885-0750. |
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