The return of Neurosis to the world’s release bins almost always coincides with commentary that apparently mines thesauruses for grandiose theorizing, hyperbolic language, flowery adjectives and admittedly deserved superlatives. The testing of the limits of unsmiling verbosity by us hacks rears its head in response to the heart-attack seriousness, importance and significance of Neurosis’ work, filled with the duality of dread and optimism alongside the impending implosion and apocalypse of mind, body, soul and the external world as it is. There have been spots in their discography post-Times Of Grace where the feeling has been of fatigue and age, but Fires Within Fires has the multiple-prefix-metal legends sounding rejuvenated. All the elements anyone would want from the band are adroitly balanced: anger, furious riffing, tribal exultation, mechanization, hardcore punk vocalization and rumbling brown-note warmth all presented in songs that flow smoothly from point A to B and beyond. Thirty years down the line and the rules continue to be rewritten.
—Kevin Stewart-Panko
