Band:	Neurosis
Album:	Enemy Of The Sun
Style:	Post-hardcore, Atmospheric sludge metal
Release date:	August 17, 1993
Guest review by:	Desha

01. Lost
02. Raze The Stray
03. Burning Flesh In Year Of Pig
04. Cold Ascending
05. Lexicon
06. Enemy Of The Sun
07. The Time Of The Beasts
08. Cleanse
09. Takeahnase [demo][bonus]
10. Cleanse II [Live in Oberhausen][bonus]

Everyone knows the opening title to this one. "Lost" has such an amazing sample and beginning bass line, it burns itself inside your memory like a sleeper agent trigger - to awaken once you hear the question:

"Are you lost?"

And the answer is clear: "Yes". How can you not be, in this day and age?

"Lost" serves as much more than an amazing live song. It sells the album, not only by virtue of coming first or being particularly catchy. No, by introducing the themes. I've read somewhere that Aleister Crowley had this idea of stellar, lunar, and solar cults over humanity's existence. The solar cults - the "advanced", rigid power structures of the church (or any non-faith-related structures, really), that shackle "true" worship and transcendence - are what we have today. They're safe, comfortable, even, for some - but ultimately useless and dangerous, when not understood.

"Suffering for the wisdom long forgotten"

In short, Enemy Of The Sun is about rejecting the structures that exploit you, to get your eyes "fixed" - looking around you, looking at the past, hell, even looking inside yourself - and making the necessary sacrifice. To transcend, to "rebirth".

"Your rebirth demands a part of you dead"

This is seems like a scary proposition. But the future is scary, we simply try to not see it. I think this is why Enemy Of The Sun is such a horrifying record: the vocals are more aggressive and scarier at the same time, the drums more pounding (especially on the closing track "Cleanse"), the compositions scarier than on any of their other records. We see more of the creeping sludge influence ("The Time Of The Beasts") that will dominate Neurosis from here on out. We hear buried/whispered spoken lines ("The Time Of The Beasts", "Enemy Of The Sun"), eerie samples ("Lost", "Raze The Stray", "Burning Flesh In Year Of Pig"), sounds of howling beasts and worshiping people ("Raze The Stray", "Lexicon"). It's also the last Neurosis record with a truly amazing, hypnotizing, and curious bass on it (in my opinion).

Like the Buddhist monk in Saigon, it is our responsibility to reawaken, to protest, and to emerge victorious from the shackles laid upon us and our neighbors by ourselves - no matter the sacrifice. No matter what it looks like, or what may happen. Even if leaving safety behind creates a time of beasts, it's this safety, this comfort that's just a "mask" for our doom.

"In lunar horizons there is understanding"

Don't rest on comfort. Look around you. Look to the past. Look how things can be better. Try to work towards it. Even if it's scary, even if it requires a sacrifice. We need to move on - or back. Just somewhere. We've trapped ourselves in a self-perpetuating machine that's destroying everything around us, including our psyche, our physical body and yes - even our faith.

"Harvest their return - those who drive away the sun."

We don't have much time left. Transcend.