The unexpected return of Neurosis this year was a welcome surprise to longtime fans of the post-metal band. It all but seemed Neurosis had come to an abrupt end, after their singer/guitarist Scott Kelly publicly admitted to abusing his wife and children back in 2022. His bandmates in Neurosis, publicly condemned him for his actions, expelling him from the lineup and putting the influential band on ice.
That is at least until March 20th, when out of nowhere, they dropped a brand new studio album online, “An Undying Love For A Burning World“, complete with the revelation that they had welcomed Aaron Turner (SUMAC, Old Man Gloom, ex-Isis, etc.) in Kelly‘s place.
On paper Turner is the most blatantly obvious choice to fill the role. There was a good stretch of years amid the aughts where so many post-metal bands aped the works of Neurosis and Isis, that ‘Neur-Isis’ became a genre descriptor.
In a new interview over at Bandcamp, guitarist/vocalist Steve Von Till and Turner spoke about how this reinvention of the band took place. When asked how Turner was selected, Von Till replied:
“We were thinking about how we could reinvent ourselves with the same energy that we reinvented ourselves with when I first joined, when we went from ‘The Word As Law‘ [1990] to ‘Souls At Zero‘ [1992]. But we’re no longer young men. What kind of puzzles could we put in front of us to create that level of reinvention when time doesn’t move the same way it used to? It came down to finding the right energy.
Honestly, the only hesitation about Aaron at first was that it seemed so obvious. And we weren’t convinced that he wasn’t too busy with his own work to just want to drop everything and join our dysfunctional old man band.”
Turner was also asked about his reaction to getting the call to join up withe the group. He offered:
“It’s not like Steve and I had never spoken, and he all of a sudden asked me to join. Our paths became interwoven a long time ago. Numerous projects of mine released stuff on [Neurosis’s label] Neurot. I did some artwork for Neurosis. Neurosis took my old band [ISIS] on tour. I don’t know if Steve remembers this, but in the early 2000s, he proposed that I come up to the Bay Area and do some stuff with him and one of the guys from Enablers.
This is a relationship of community where everybody is doing stuff with each other constantly, and there are always ideas flowing back and forth. In that way, it wasn’t surprising to me. I’d had an open dialogue with Steve for many years. At the same time, it was definitely a what-the-fuck moment for me because this is a band that I had been deeply influenced by in many ways, both musically and ideologically.”
As for whether or not Neurosis were looking for someone who could contribute new ideas, and not just fill a role, Von Till stated:
“We’ve always been a collective, and we need the energy. As much as people may think they understand what happens behind the scenes in certain bands, Neurosis has always been collaborative. This album being a reinvention, we didn’t want the same old shit. We wanted somebody to come up with new ideas and a fresh approach—to make not only the old stuff their own, but to bring new stuff. All “Neur-Isis” jokes aside, it’s really been what Aaron has done with SUMAC, the really unhinged sonic dynamics and mastery of raw emotion, and his unique approach to guitar, that we felt was really going to click with our energy.”
