Over the course of four full-length albums, Isis has continually branched out further than their heavy metal roots, but on Sunday night, the band demonstrated the muscle that keeps them locked in that genre label. It wasn't just an ear-bleeding onslaught -- the band showed off its knack for ambience and arena-ready prog rock -- but those metal moments dwarfed everything else in the set. Half-full bottles danced on bars, and the 9:30 Club's balcony shook like never before.
The crowd at the Isis show was similar to the Mastodon show from a few weeks back. Isis is another hipster-approved alt-metal band, so among the black T'd, long-haired bangers were a host of everyday 20-somethings, and the band has earned these metal tourists by making music that really does stretch the genre -- almost to the point of defiance.
Most Isis songs are epic, soundtrack-worthy journeys. Clocking in at almost 10 minutes a song, there isn't much time to play that many, but each song has so many tones and directions, the set leaves you feeling like you've heard twice as many. Atmospheric keys swirl with dribbling drums and build to heavy metal freakouts with powerhouse drums, sharp guitars, counterpoint bass and Aaron Turner's hardcore growl. With the various movements, these aren't just rock songs. Isis makes heavy metal compositions in an almost classical fashion.
"Wrist of Kings" starts with a note held long on the organ before tribal drumming starts the churn. Melodic guitars and humming bass gradually are introduced, and the tension and crescendo build for several minutes before really reaching the song, which mellows slightly into underwater lounge music. Turner bobs almost violently, jerking a bit as he plays his guitar, more ready than anyone else in the room to get to the headbanging. They ride on that a bit with Turner singing mellow and monotone -- a few lines -- delaying the payoff even more, and then a soaring crescendo takes us to the metal thrash, and Turner's growl is back. It's a smart move to do some actual singing these days. Offsets the growl, making that even more dramatic.
The vocals begin weirdly modern rocky on "Holy Tears," but Turner quickly turns back to hardcore, alternating the singing and screaming. This songs starts with hard rock, saving the softer, haunting showcase of pretty keys, bass groove, and more melodic plucking and tribal tom-tomming for a few minutes into the song. And it's all another edge-of-the-cliff tease, building up to a vicious, monolithic finish.
"In Fiction," the encore, begins with several more minutes of swirling, ambient sprawl and angular guitars, again climbing to some of the heaviest chest-shaking rock and roll around and falling back to a pace more glacial and a big finish. It's fiercely moving, but after listening to a few of these epics, a couple of shorter, less-schizophrenic songs might be nice to change the pace. You don't know if the band's going to start fast or slow, but you know they're gonna touch 'em both at least a couple of times each. It's still fun to follow the journey, but knowing you've got one after the other can be exhausting.
Sadly, metal god Justin Broadrick's current band, the industrial/metal/shoegaze group Jesu, apparently did not get its work permit situation straightened out and wasn't able to leave England to join the tour after all. Torche played a confident support set, though. Much less experimental than Isis, Torche's stoner metal was a much more familiar sound, but just as loud. And this band can unleash an epic like "The Last Word" but sounds best when it compacts its attention deficit into a smaller package.
