I have been a fan of Neurosis for years, but I wouldn't say a "die-hard" fan. I totally loved Souls at Zero, but most of their other work up until this was hit and miss for me. I liked a few songs off of Enemy of the Sun.

When I first heard this gem I was genuinely blown away. I could almost call it the "Sgt. Peppers album for tribal metal" or "post metal" or whatever other label people come up with for them.

I will warn the avid metal enthusiast that this album is not a straight, riff after riff thrash piece...Neurosis pulls out all the stops here, from heavy guitars, to organs, multiple drum sets, bagpipes, the list goes on. Scott Kelly doesn't disappoint with screeching vocals that are not unlike a specter screaming with its larynx torn out.

You almost need to be "in a state of mind" to appreciate the beauty here. It is not to be heard, but listened to and experienced. I also think the album is best heard start to finish, vs. song to song. It allows the listener to really lose themselves in the sound.

Purify is one of my favorite metal songs ever written, with ever-building crescendos to a climactic decline. Other notable tracks are Through Silver and Blood, Aeon and Locust Star.

A must have for any Neurosis fan, or any metal fan looking for the next plateau.

Sludge Metal, heck yeah! Neurosis is a big influence on bands such as Isis and Mastodon, and you can hear it. But what makes Neurosis different from those bands? A ______load. While Mastodon (don't know much about Isis) is good, Neurosis is a lot more original and refreshing sounding to these ears, especially because this record's sound is pretty shiny to these ears (this stuff so far? I like it!), having not much experience with slower metal (and there is a ton of genres out there that are slower, I know).

Through Silver in Blood is CRUSHING. Huge, sludgy riffs, deep brooding bass, tribal drumming. The dynamics and vocal really do it as well. Songs start out slow, build up with plenty of time to breath, and EXPLODE with riffs, shouts, screams, and surging bass lines. Whether or not Through Silver in Blood is the most crushing album ever is an opinion of choice, but even if it isn't the most crushing album, it won't save the fact it's crushing in general.

And there is no denying that there is at atmosphere. Yes, morons won't be able to see it, but it is. Apocalyptic, Tribal, Mayan civilization doing things, lot's of cool stuff done easily by this music. When listening to the first track, the atmosphere that conjures up the end of the world in the jungle in the moonlight, fire in the sky, easily done. Enclosure in Flames easily lives up to the title. The two tracks pack quite a punch in their five minute run. Strength of Fates is soft for most of it, then explodes like a bomb. The two interludes are great as well, and are worthy as any of the track on here.

And keeping up with the music are the lyrics. They add to the atmosphere and music, and while don't exactly make sense, it works in making the song come to life even more, given the theme of the album. And there are some piano, samples, and other instruments in the mix, to a great effect. Really, just a great job using all of what they got, with hardly any filler within songs.

Don't worry if Through Silver and Blood doesn't quite sound good on the first listen, when I first bought it, despite hearing some of the tracks online, was highly disappointed. But I then learned of it's many traits, it's brooding atmosphere, and acquired some tastes along the way after listening. This one is a essential purchase for metal fans, who want something beyond monotonous blast beats, or speed in general.

9/10

I was revisiting this gem a few weeks ago and for some reason or another was moved to share my opinion of it with the world...I'm such a narcissist.

If the onslaught of various obnoxious subgenres don't raise any flags (alternative metal, apocalyptic metal, folk metal), let me assure you: Neurosis is not your average "metal" band. Newcomers beware! Truth be told, this is not a band that one just listens to. This is a band whose music (and visual accompaniment) is to be experienced. Do not just try to pop this into your car stereo for a casual listen on your way to the grocery store. You make time for this band.

From the opening seconds of the first track, you know you're in for something different. Tribal drumming lays the groundwork and makes way for the hypnotic guitar riffs and passionate vocals found throughout this
release. Through repetition and structural evolution, they transport the listener to another world. Who needs drugs when there are bands like Neurosis? Sculpting sound with emotional fervor, they paint sonic landscapes with aural brushes. Cavernous drums wed with mountains of low-end distortion and waves of agonizing screams. The music blends seamlessly from brutally heavy to serenely calm and back again. Despite the occasional breath-catching oasis, this remains a truly intense album.

Neurosis have been known to create devastatingly crushing, spiritually influenced records and this is definitely their most aggressive offering. It is with "Through Silver In Blood" that Neurosis push their way to the frontlines as one of the heaviest bands on Earth.

Other notable Neurosis releases: "A Sun That Never Sets", "Given To The Rising"

"Screamingly sentient, dumbly delirious, only the gods that were can tell. A sickened,sensitive shadow writhing in hands that are not hands, and whirled blindly past ghastly midnights of rotting creation, corpses of dead worlds with sores that were cities, charnel winds that brush the pallid stars and make them flicker low. Beyond the worlds vague ghosts of monstrous things; half-seen columns of unsanctified temples that rest on name less rocks beneath space and reach up to dizzy vacua above the spheres of light and darkness. And through this revolting graveyard of the universe the muffled, maddening beating of drums, and thin, monotonous whine of blasphemous flutes from inconceivable, unlighted chambers beyond Time; the detestable pounding and piping whereunto dance slowly, awkwardly, and absurdly the gigantic, tenebrous ultimate gods- the blind, voiceless, mindless gargoyles whose soul is Nyarlathotep."
This is some incredible music.

It's a shame that Slayer has already trademarked the words 'Soundtrack to the Apocalypse', because Through Silver in Blood is clearly the more deserving album of such a coveted title. It's also a shame that my browser crashed after I'd written several verbose paragraphs detailing just how heavy--both sonically and thematically--this beast of a record is, but I think paraphrasing it will do it no harm.

Simply put, Through Silver in Blood is an immensely crushing album. Lyrically, it predicts the world's landscape after nuclear holocaust, and although that's a bold undertaking, the music is even more impressive by supporting such terrible visions. Psychadelic guitars hoisted by tribal drumming swell into bar riffing and tortured screams that herald the armageddon. Neurosis are a unique band, in that they combine different elements into one dense, refined sound, and they've never done it better than on this album. Through Silver in Blood is equal parts sludge, doom, post-metal, noise, ambient, drone, and psychadelia, and there's not a single note or word out of place. Running the risk of hyperbole, this is a perfect metal album, and certainly one of the genre's most unique, immersive and powerful albums of the 90s.

Ten years before the progressive-sludge genre boiled over with an excess of imitators, the band that paved the way for this genre produced a template that seethed heaviness like few other albums before or since. This may not be the best introduction to Neurosis (its predecessor, Enemy of the Sun, is slightly more conventional, and probably a better starting point), but as soon as my first listen to this album, I knew that my own definition of what 'heavy' meant had been changed forever. I'm not some Neurosis freak or anything--I only own half of their discography, and this is the only one I'd give a five star rating to. This isn't an album I play daily, or even monthly: you have to be in the right, catastrophic mindset to let this album really sink in. But man, what better album is there for those 'I wish the world was under six feet of radiating ash' days?