FRIDAY NOSTALGIA!! — Isis

Oceanic (Ipecac Recordings, 2002)

For: Neurosis, late-era Converge, Red Sparrowes

Byline: The game changing post-metal album that started it all.

With the news that the 13 year run of Isis is coming to a close this summer (no SLC dates or Denver!?) we thought it would be fitting to dedicate this round of FRIDAY NOSTALGIA!! to the undisputed kings of cerebral post-metal. I am not even sure what prompted me to pick up this album a few years back, I have never been much of a metal fan, in fact in the past couple of years has seen a huge upswing in tolerance for the musical violence so casually associated with metal. Perhaps that is what attracted me to Isis in the first place. Isis is heavy, at times even brutal, but the long, sprawling tracks on Oceanic have something that most metal albums previous to 2002 didn't have. Space. Moments of dead air between massive power chords and chugga-chugga riffs that let the sheer heaviness sink in, to let it settle deep in your chest. Climaxes that have equal valleys to their mountains of loudness. Metal, to me, has always seemed like a race with itself to get to the end of the song, hardly stopping to enjoy the nuclear-blast dystopian wasteland it was ferrying the listener across. Oceanic, at eight tracks, spans almost an hour, pitching massively heavy riffs, locked-in-time drumming, and Aaron Turner's gruff singing (somewhere between a bark and a tuneless howl), with a sprawling sense of glacially-timed pacing and atmospherics. Waves of noise crash on the brittle the shores of distortion-filled swells like a moon-tide ebb and flow, matching the indecipherable lyrics full of maritime imagery. A mist-shrouded ambient segue breaks up the heavier side-A and the more fluid side-B. A disembodied female voice floats in and out of the album's b-side, giving rise to the speculation of the albums lover-scorned thematic arc. Oceanic was the start of something huge, the start of metal dudes who weren't afraid to wear their post-rock and shoegaze influences on their sleeves. The huge slew of similar sounding bands and albums that all use Oceanic as a touchstone is evidence of the far reaching influence of this album. Although informed by bands experimenting with pacing and heavy-soft dynamics before them, Oceanic is a gem in the glowing crown of early 2000's post-metal. An absolute must hear before you die album.

Ryan H.

Isis

Wavering Radiant (05.09, Ipecac)

For: Battle of Mice, Pelican, Mono

Byline: Heavy Ghost

Isis really should have stole DM Stith's debut album's title "Heavy Ghost". Nothing would have fit Isis's new offering than Mr Stith's ambiguous title. Isis is heavy, about as heavy as anything I listen to, my ears take a pummeling after listening. While Isis embodies the roots of heavy metal Isis also exhibit an incoporeal epherial spectrum that floats freely between metal and post-rock. In fact I would say ghostly is a perfect adjective to describe their music, while it heavy enough to send anyone unfamilar with the genre fumbling for the volume, a phantasmic glimmering shine overlays every power chord and blast beat and hovers above every beautiful break down and shimmering soundscape. Isis broke new ground in 2002 with their genre defying opus "Oceanic", Isis repackaged, renewed, and recontextualized metal for a whole new generation of fans. They incorporated heavy break downs with Mogwai-ish guitar epic soundscapes, while they were not the first to slow metal down to the brass tacks they certainly were the first to gain cross-over success for doing it. "Wavering Radiant" doesn't break any new ground for the group per say, it is a further step in the right direction of metal aesthetic with post-rock's penchant for evoking a sense of longing and dread in every chord.  Aaron Turner's vocals range from the death metal growl to Maynard-esqe emoting  on a dime. A welcome addition to the repetoire-de-Isis is the re-emphasis away from the tribal drumming on "In the Absense of Truth" to the electronics and keyboard heavy palate of "Oceanic". Instead of relying on a shimmering bus of electronics, a real hammond organ is present throughout, making it's debut early in the colossol opener "Hail of the Dead", and an upright piano finds it's way into the mix in the blistering closer "Threshold of Transformation".  Everything about this album is huge, towering, and ear-shatteringly AMAZING. Required headphone listening.

Stone to Wake A Serpent