http://www.sgnl05.com/
Ipecac Recordings
www.ipecac.com
2004
1. So Did We
2. Backlit
3. In Fiction
4. Wills Dissolve
5. Syndic Calls
6. Altered Course
7. Grinning Mouths
All at once, you're floored.
The guitars crash like colossal waves rolling you under. The fierce vocals, rumbling bass and drums come thundering down. You're hopelessly lost under a swollen wall of sound. It's suffocating. The pulse in your head spasms. You cannot move for all the weight upon you, pushing you further down and away from the surface.
Suddenly, you're in the shallows and you can breathe again.
The layers of sound have withdrawn into more subtle nuances. The sound becomes as expansive and open as the entire ocean. Now, singing; the guitars, bass and melodies coalesce into tranquillity; the drums steady heartbeats. The waves are calm. Seagulls swoop down. A crab scuttles across the sandy floor.
There are no warnings when it comes crashing down again.
Between strength and subtlety, between massiveness and melody, between power and pleasantness... is Panopticon. It is a journey through Heaven and Hell, effortlessly transporting the listener through turgid hellstorms and moonlit pastures. It is the music of hurricanes, it is the music of celestial sleep. But then again, ISIS have always been known for their juxtaposition of thunder and soft rain, much like their legendary predecessors NEUROSIS. However, ISIS are much more listener-friendly than their forefathers; while it takes several listens to comprehend and enjoy the hell out of albums like Oceanic and this one, NEUROSIS records tend to take weeks or months of full attention to fully grasp. Does this make ISIS any less ambitious or worthy? Does it make them second-tier?
Hell no. In fact, I'd be hard pressed to name a single NEUROSIS album better than Panopticon, the best album ISIS have released in their relatively short careers.
Compared to their earlier material, these seven lenghty tracks are more melodic, subtle and soft. Although there is somewhat of a sacrifice in the brutality department, there is no denying the power behind every note on this record. Whether you are drifting off to Lethe or bashing someone's head in, the music flows effortlessly. It is music with "pores", music that, if put under a microscope, would teem with life. Ambitious, but never extraneous. Swirling and vast, thunderous and suffocating. Apollonian and Dionysian. Eros and Thanatos. Alpha and Omega.
Fuckin'-A wonderful.
9.5/10
Black Winter Day
Maybe inadvertently I'd worked up to Isis by having first heard GY!BE....as opposed to 'stepping down' from the Neurosis platform.
