In the interest of honesty and professional courtesy, I’m going to admit that I never listened to the last Isis record, Wavering Radiant. You’ll note it wasn’t reviewed here. That’s because I figured after 2006’s In the Absence of Truth, which I found to be phoned in and largely uninspired, the band didn’t have anything else to offer, and unless they underwent some radical change or progression, that was going to remain true for the duration.

That might sound harsh, but really, how many songs have Isis made in the last seven years with the exact same drum beat? I’m glad Aaron Turner learned how to sing, and I think he does it well, and I appreciate the influence Isis has had over the post-metal genre as second only to Neurosis, but anything they do at this point, they’re not going to be the first to do it. Neurosis is like The Simpsons to Isis‘ South Park: “Simpsons did it.” Doesn’t mean South Park sucks, but it’s never going to be first.

And though I relished Oceanic and still think Panopticon is one of the best albums to come out this decade, my mind isn’t really open to what Isis are doing now. It’s simply lost my attention, and furthermore, nothing I’ve heard about Wavering Radiant or any of the reviews I’ve read have done much to change my mind. When I got the press release about their new video for the song “20 Minutes/40 Years,” yeah, I clicked on it and played the video, but I skipped my way through. From what I can tell, it looks like Tool. For the sake of fairness, here it is so you can make up your own mind.

Tags: California, Ipecac, Isis, post-metal

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 11th, 2009 at 1:11 pm and is filed under Bootleg Theater, Whathaveyou. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.