Neurosis

Neurosis

As a quarter of a century of blood and thunder approacheth, imitators and inheritors fall to the wayside (fare thee well, Isis), but the mighty Neurosis roars on. The Oakland crew's 10th studio slab keeps the back-to-basics feel of 2007's Given to the Rising, sloughing off recent overtures to accessibility for pure Neurotic power. Read: wall-battering grunge, post-final battle atmospherics, and enough emotional gristle to feed a Tyrannosaurus rex. Is the bludgeoning, graceful "My Heart for Deliverance" the quintessential Neurosis track? Gird your loins and find out. (Neurosis levels Emo's East with Pain Teens and Rwake on Sunday, Feb. 17.)