(Alternative Tentacles, 1992)Souls at Zero sounds a whole lot like the metal album I would want to make if I made a metal album. Its heart is all grim sludgy parts and barked end-times poetry, surrounded and supported by arpeggiated chords, haunting samples, sonic sweeteners like piano, flute, and violin, and sweet guitar leads soaring over all those grim sludgy parts at exactly the right moments. It stands as Neurosis' blistering and clear mission statement to break and to heal and never compromise their singular vision.
Souls also conveys all the sophistication (or its lack) of a first attempt at this kind of epic heaviness, which is why I think my attempt at a metal album might sound like this. Listeners might drown in adjectives trying to describe it, but "subtle" would not be one of the offending modifiers. Also, transitions are sometimes shaky and abrupt, as the boys shift between ideas and levels of reality without much attention to any connective tissue. Of course, Neurosis came up with this fantastic behemoth approximately two decades ago, which makes them at least 20 years and several mind-blowing records more awesome than me.
Souls at Zero is often an honorable mention in the (much deserved) praise of Through Silver in Blood and any of the band's later works (my love for The Eye of Every Storm would be as likely be shouted down as seconded by the Neurosis faithful), but taken on its own terms it is indeed a force and a fire under any current musician with ambitions both heady and heavy.
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