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Isis: Celestial

25/01/11 || Khlysty

Having finalized their line up and having obviously been able to get out of their system the Neurosis/Melvins/Eyehategod influences/apings, Isis produced with “Celestial” one of the most important, heavy and dense records, not only for the ‘00s, but for metal in general. Having already lain the groundwork with two amazing E.P.s (“Mosquito Control” and “Red Sea”), Isis proceeded with “Celestial” to break down the boundaries of “the heavy” and create a new hybrid, what is generally and retardedly became known as “post metal”.

Silly tags aside, “Celestial” is one of them records that truly and completely restored my faith in metal, as it represented everything that heavy music was supposed to be in the first place: wild enough to make the wimps steer clear of it; dense enough to beg for multiple listens to be properly absorbed; immediate enough so as to make your blood boil even with the idea of listening to it; cerebral enough to make clear that the band members clearly put a lot of effort while creating it; and experimental enough to make the listener look outside the metal canon for the band’s influences and ambitions.

To me, the best way to describe Isis’ music in “Celestial” is this: imagine Eyehategod jamming around the most out-there Hawkwind songs, while being recorded and mixed by Godflesh-era Justin Broadrick and you might get a pretty good idea about how Isis sounds here. The song dynamics are less jarring and intricate than on past recordings, while the band clearly infuses their sound with some of the space rock/acid rock dictums of da ‘Wind, while, at the same time, filling their music with a malevolent undercurrent of electronics, which lends it with an almost inhumane clinical quality.

The band sprawls their songs to gargantuan lengths and uses ingeniously the orchestration to build tension and release, through layering of the guitars, creative –and, surprisingly, groovy- drumming, tonal and dynamics mastering of the highest order and a impossibly brutal production that can only be compared with gravity or other elemental forces. Even during its calmer moments, “Celestial” sends a message of enormity, of a thunderhead approaching, of a universe-collapsing force that’s controlled by a steely hand and a malevolent mind.

The four “ambient” “SGNL” tracks work as codas to the onslaughts that follow them and help the songs between them attain a suite-like quality. Speaking of the songs, I would like to point out that, even though there are certain highlights (“Celestial (The Tower)” being one of the greatest songs ever written by the band), I think that Isis tried to make the listener approach the record as a concept album, if not, ehm, conceptually, at least sonically. The music, while still informed by sludge and hardcore, has a certain majestic flow that overpasses genre restrictions, creating new paths for the heavy to grow.

Look, if I sound a bit “dry” and “unenthusiastic” about “Celestial”, that’s because for the last nine years I’ve been absorbing it at least once a month, so it’s become completely ingrained in my consciousness; it goes something like this: there’s metal before “Celestial” and after “Celestial”. If you’re a developed human being, you recognize this record as the truly revolutionary and paradigm-shifting work of art that it is; if not, well, my friend, you’re in trouble. That’s all there is to it.

Information
Released: 2000
Label: Escape Artist
Website: www.isistheband.com
Band
Aaron Turner: vocals, guitar, art
Mike Gallagher: guitar
Clifford B. Meyer: guitar, electronics, vocals
Jeff Caxide: bass
Aaron Harris: drums, percussion

Tracklist
01. SGNL>01
02. Celestial (the tower)
03. Glisten
04. Swarm reigns (down)
05. SGNL>02
06. Deconstructing towers
07. SGNL>03
08. Collapse and crush
09. C.F.T. (new circuitry and continued evolution)
10. Gentle time
11. SGNL>04 (end transmission)

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