Steven Von Till is an odd guy. Seriously. He's the lead singer/screamer for Neurosis and does his time in Tribes of Neurot. This, "If I Should Fall to the Field" is his second solo album, and its out on Neurot Recordings.
To help you understand my wonder and fascination with this record, let me describe these other bands of his for you. I guess I should preface by saying I'm more familiar with Tribes of Neurot than I am Neurosis. Neurosis plays a sort of sludgy metal. They're a huge influence on ISIS if that means anything to anybody. They do what they do really well apparently; I just haven't really gotten over what it is they do. Tribes of Neurot are a nifty little collective who release weird records of mostly noise. One of their latest albums is a sort of mind altering trip into an insect hive. All the sounds were created by pitch shifting insect noises.
So what does Steven Von Till do for his second solo record? He plays folk music. Albeit folk music inspired by farm hands more than, say, James Taylor. This is folk music, in the creaky door, wind blowing, Appalachian sense and it's completely gorgeous.
The album opens with a simple organ part repeated a couple times and then von Till intones, "you don't believe what you can't see." Von Till's voice is surprisingly rich considering the yarbled screaming he does in Neurosis, and delivers all the lyrics with quiet passion. The lyrics are an interesting part of this disc. He writes the majority of the album himself, but two songs are traditional songs of field workers, one is a Neil Young cover, and the last track is a spoken word piece which I'll get to later. The songs he penned are distinctly personal, yet all are infused with the theme of field workers and manual labor and a time in the past where farms and crops and hard work were more common. The two traditional songs, "My Work is Done", and "Am I Born to Die" fit with the rest of the disc nicely neither standing out excessively, nor fading completely into the background. They provide a compliment and a sense of authenticity to the album. In fact, "My Work is Done" may well be the highlight of the album. Von Till's voice is joined only by fiddle for all four minutes. The writer was weary and worried about what was in store after this earth and Von Till's vocals perfectly capture the exhaustion and melancholy one can only imagine the original singer felt around a campfire after a hard day's work. The Neil Young cover "Running Dry" is nice, but one of my least favorite moments on the album. One of the strengths of the album is its minimalism and the cover seems too busy.
The original songs are built around guitar mostly, with fiddle, banjo and organ showing up every once in a while. The pace of the record is glacial, but it's the only pace fitting for the absolute weariness Von Till showcases throughout. It's a melancholy album, capped off by a scratchy recording of Von Till's grandfather reading a poem titled "The Harpy." Louis A. Von Till's archival reading is accompanied by Steven Von Till on bass as well as guitar drones and a Hammond B-3. It's a perfect ending for the record. A worn recording of a voice from the past complete with haunting background music, it sums it all up nicely.
This is one of the saddest records to come out this year. That may be its weak point. On some listens it ran together a bit. But it's not a hopeless record, just a weary record. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a light at the end of the tunnel for Von Till, but I think we can all understand that sentiment. Sometimes a little pathos is good for us. Sometimes it feels like there's no light, and it's just one huge tunnel of weariness. This record is both for the times of weariness, and for the times when you're out in the light, as a reminder of how thankful you should be for escaping that tunnel.
B
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