Isis

Oceanic (Ipecac ’03) Rating: A-
I’m not nearly as up to date on modern metal as I should be, but when I heard this album playing in a cd shop I had to have it. The band’s titanic sound is well, oceanic in its icy vastness, combining the moodiness of Faith No More with the heft of Kyuss, the space-between-the-notes dynamics of “post rock” bands like Slint, and the vocal intensity of Pantera. The end result is not easy listening by any means, and indeed Isis will probably be too extreme for most tastes. I myself have never been a big fan of the “cookie monster” vocal style, and I’ll be damned if I can make out a single word barked out by lead screecher Aaron Turner. Fortunately, if you consider his voice as merely another instrument the mix works very well, and most of Oceanic is instrumental, anyway. Aside from a couple of short songs in the middle of the album, most of these nine songs approach 8, 9, and even 10 minutes in length. As such, this is not an album for short attention spans, as it’s best appreciated after several uninterrupted listens in its entirety. Surprisingly, unlike many other “progressive metal” bands, Isis doesn’t try to dazzle us with their instrumental virtuosity, as these are by and large simple songs. Instead, it’s the band’s calm-before-the-storm dynamics that impress, and when those storms hit they do so with an enormous force. Yet it is also the long buildups, many of which are quite beautiful, that makes this album such a satisfying listen. Had the band only offered bludgeoning repetition things would get boring fast, but it’s the album’s subtle shifts and mood enhancing segments that make the eventual explosions so powerful. Sometimes the album is too sludgy and long-winded for its own good, but the bulk of Oceanic is a truly fascinating journey that’s well worth taking.

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