Artist: Isis
Album: Wavering Radiant
Year: 2009
Grade: 3.5 pretzels
It’s not often that I get a chance to review metal albums. While I certainly enjoy listening to metal, I’m both A) not a metalhead and B) very picky about what metal I do listen to. As such, I tend to be very out of the loop when it comes to new metal releases and I have to rely on other people to do the leg work for me, as Pitchfork did by awarding Isis’ Wavering Radiant with their Best New Music label. Pitchfork certainly aren’t experts when it comes to fine metal connoisseuring (who says “connoisseur” can’t be a verb?), but I trust their judgment enough to give the album a listen and see what I think.
Isis are one of those bands I’ve heard about for years but never felt compelled to listen to. Often cited in the same breath as Mastodon, a metal band I hold in extremely high regard, Isis seem to have a similar approach to metal music. Both bands sound like they value melodies over high-speed guitar shredding and chugging power chords. Both bands can also create extremely heavy, face-melting music when they want to. It’s an approach to metal that I can fully support, since it allows bands to escape the “scary” place so many metal bands get trapped in, while still staying true to the power and sheer awesomeness that makes metal a rewarding genre of music to listen to.
The music on Wavering Radiant sits somewhere on the fence between the melody and intensity of Mastodon and the dark, wandering passages of Tool (in fact, Tool guitarist Adam Jones guests on a couple of songs). The tense opening track, “Hall Of The Dead”, is a solid representation of the album as a whole. Gritty, down-tuned guitars create a lockstep rhythmic background, while singer Aaron Turner bellows over everything. He also switches to a much more melodic, traditional voice at times, alternating his “metal voice” and his “normal voice” often throughout the album. The album also features more than its fair share of reverb-laden, hesitant guitar patterns, evoking (again) Tool at their calmest, as well as Robert Smith’s guitar work with the Cure (listen to “Hand Of The Host” for examples). Wavering Radiant seems characterized by this balance of standard metal tropes (guttural vocals/heavy, distorted guitar) and unexpected moments of genuinely beautiful music.
I’ve only listened to this one Isis album, so I can’t say how it compares to their others. I’m certainly intrigued after listening and I may very well go check out their back catalogue. However, the one major problem I have with this record is that I’ve already heard a similar album this year…and it was infinitely superior. Mastodon’s Crack The Skye has continued to amaze me more and more with each further listen and it has become difficult for me to listen to other contemporary metal releases without comparing them to Crack The Skye. Wavering Radiant is certainly good, but compared to Mastodon’s sprawling, tragic, emotionally harrowing epic, it feels small and thin (two adjectives not usually associated with metal). Isis’ guitars sound too scratchy and tentative and the keyboards that keep bubbling up beneath everything underscore the simplicity of the music. I still think Isis have put something impressive together with this album, but in 2009, their friends in Mastodon have outdone them in every department.
Isis are one of those bands I’ve heard about for years but never felt compelled to listen to. Often cited in the same breath as Mastodon, a metal band I hold in extremely high regard, Isis seem to have a similar approach to metal music. Both bands sound like they value melodies over high-speed guitar shredding and chugging power chords. Both bands can also create extremely heavy, face-melting music when they want to. It’s an approach to metal that I can fully support, since it allows bands to escape the “scary” place so many metal bands get trapped in, while still staying true to the power and sheer awesomeness that makes metal a rewarding genre of music to listen to.
The music on Wavering Radiant sits somewhere on the fence between the melody and intensity of Mastodon and the dark, wandering passages of Tool (in fact, Tool guitarist Adam Jones guests on a couple of songs). The tense opening track, “Hall Of The Dead”, is a solid representation of the album as a whole. Gritty, down-tuned guitars create a lockstep rhythmic background, while singer Aaron Turner bellows over everything. He also switches to a much more melodic, traditional voice at times, alternating his “metal voice” and his “normal voice” often throughout the album. The album also features more than its fair share of reverb-laden, hesitant guitar patterns, evoking (again) Tool at their calmest, as well as Robert Smith’s guitar work with the Cure (listen to “Hand Of The Host” for examples). Wavering Radiant seems characterized by this balance of standard metal tropes (guttural vocals/heavy, distorted guitar) and unexpected moments of genuinely beautiful music.
I’ve only listened to this one Isis album, so I can’t say how it compares to their others. I’m certainly intrigued after listening and I may very well go check out their back catalogue. However, the one major problem I have with this record is that I’ve already heard a similar album this year…and it was infinitely superior. Mastodon’s Crack The Skye has continued to amaze me more and more with each further listen and it has become difficult for me to listen to other contemporary metal releases without comparing them to Crack The Skye. Wavering Radiant is certainly good, but compared to Mastodon’s sprawling, tragic, emotionally harrowing epic, it feels small and thin (two adjectives not usually associated with metal). Isis’ guitars sound too scratchy and tentative and the keyboards that keep bubbling up beneath everything underscore the simplicity of the music. I still think Isis have put something impressive together with this album, but in 2009, their friends in Mastodon have outdone them in every department.
No comments:
Post a Comment