A Storm of Light - And We Wept The Black Ocean Within (Neurot)
3/5
By: Charlie Potter
It's no surprise that And We Wept The Black Ocean Within is on Neurosis' label Neurot Recordings, given that they sound too much like a very tame version of Through Silver In Blood era Neurosis.
One of the first things that sticks out on this album are some of the awful break downs where the tone seems to suggest an almost hip hop style "let's take it to the verse" thing that really does not suite this band. Couple the blodges of corny, irritating tone with the sheer repetition of a lot of these compositions, and it doesn't make for a very good first few listens.
After quite a few listens however, and a lot more delving into the further reaches of this album, some really great music begins to surface. A Storm of Light have some really great melodies, and it's in fact when they are at their most Neurosis-esque that I enjoy this band the most. Despite the blatant mimicking of style you feel that A Storm of Light are more showing their influences than they are soullessly plagiarising one of the greats. It's a very aesthetic style that the two bands have in common, and it's a hard aesthetic to pull off, not only the colossal riffing and managing to play that powerfully and yet slowly, but also the melodies and the arrangements have to be correct so as to suggest a force far stronger than a few men with guitars.
As an aesthetic, or indeed a style of aesthetic, this is a pretty timeless one having its roots firmly grounded in classical music. Human beings will never tire of contemplating a force much more powerful than them in nature.
Of course there are plenty of bands that sound a great deal like Neurosis and have borrowed a great deal from them, including Battle of Mice who also have released a record on Neurot (reviewed HERE). The chances are if you liked the Battle of Mice album, you will like this one. Although they are not exactly the same, they are for the same people. That said, I didn't like the Battle of Mice album all that much and think that this is a far better album. There are some really great synth sounds here, and I actually think that this band at times have achieved something that Steve von Till has been trying to achieve both in his solo project and Neurosis on the last couple of records, better than he has.
The really tough question to answer with And We Wept The Black Ocean Within is whether the good bits outweigh the bad bits. There are a lot of people who can't stand to listen an album with any bad bits in them. And this has loads of really, really cheesy bits in it. Overall, it didn't need to be an hour long. If you're in a band and think that you will make your debut an hour long, then I urge you not to. This tactic is extremely rarely anything but an exercise in ego and a kind of gutlessness to edit your music. It ends up being quite dreary - a pretty bad album, with a lot of pretty good bits.
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