Neurosis: Given To The Rising

Neurosis' 1996 landmark Through Silver In Blood wasn't merely explosive in its dynamics; the album hit the underground like a concussion grenade, clearing the road for countless lumbering, lysergic "post-metal" bands to follow. Four albums and one pastoral-folk period later, the San Francisco powerhouse reclaims the sound that made it legendary. Given To The Rising opens with a paint-peeling title track, then toys with listener expectations for its remainder, kicking open hell's maw only after tracking through long, eerily still passages like the ones in "At The End If The Road." In spite of the "return to form" claims that followed Rising to stores, the shockwaves do take longer to arrive than fans may expect. (1999's in-your-face Times Of Grace, this isn't. But it only makes the pain that much greater when they do.