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Witnessed

Isis, 2009-11-22

18/12/09 || Khlysty

Who: Isis w/t Transitional
When: Sunday, November 22nd, 2009
Where: the new FUZZ Club, Athens, Greece

First of all, I have a complaint to make: you tall fuckers of the world, please, GO AND FUCKIN’ DIE! Look, I’m not tall. At 1,73 meters (that’s almost 5 feet 9, for you Americans and all the other uncivilized places in this here Earth…) you wouldn’t call me tall, right? So, HOW THE FUCK AM I SUPPOSED TO BE ABLE TO FUCKIN’ SEE THE FUCKIN’ BAND IF ANYONE TALLER THAN 1,73 METERS IS STANDING IN FUCKIN’ FRONT OF ME? HUH? To make it easy for you, I HATE ALL THE TALL FUCKERS WHO STAND IN FRONT OF ME DURING SHOWS, OKAY????? End of complaint, on with the show (the parts I’ve been able to see, that is)…

Has it ever happened to you to go and see a familiar band playing and be totally blown away by the performance? Has it ever happened to you to go to a concert just because it’s there and you just wanna hear some live music and come out of it blabbering like a madman and thanking the Fates for inspiring you to go to that particular concert? If yes, then you’ll be able to understand what I’m about to tell you about the Isis concert that I watched tonight (this review is being written just moments after the show’s over). But, this being GD, I’m gonna be my usual professional self and tell you everything about the concert, so bear with me, hmmkay? Cool.

Isis... somewhat at least

Now, as far as Transitional (the support band) is concerned, I have only one statement to make: FUCK YOU, Justin K. Broadrick. Fuck you and your talent. See, Transitional –a British duo of guitar and bass- taps the rich vein of post metal/shoegaze metal that’s been a staple for Justin K. Broadrick’s Jesu for quite some time now. If you are familiar with Jesu, then you probably can easily understand the music Transitional plays: drawn-out, slow-as-mud compositions, with lots of layering of guitar, bass, sampling, synths and synthetic drumming (courtesy of a laptop), lots of reverb, lots of almost ethereal-almost trance-inducing melodies, lots of repetition and scarce – if any – vocals. This might sound mighty boring to you, but at a live setting, the duo really goes for the jugular –albeit in a slow kind of way-, adding lots of volume and pathos to their music. Too bad, then, that Jesu does it so much better… Anyway, they entertained us for almost 40 minutes and they left to give the stage to Isis.

Now, as I’ve said before, I’m pretty familiar with Isis at a live setting. I’ve seen them twice during the “Panopticon” tour and once during the “In The Absence Of Truth” tour. So this was the fourth time of seeing these guys live. So, one would think that I would be a hard judge of the performance, right? Damn sure that’s right and damn sure Isis killed!!!

My main mofo The Duff reviewed pretty recently Isis’ last record, “Wavering Radiant” and as you can see he was not exactly thrilled by what he listened to. Grosso modo I agree with ‘im (although I would’ve given them an 8), seeing as Isis continue to move away from their Neurosis/Melvins/EHG/sludge origins and towards a more open-ended “post rock” musical environment. Now, this has led lots of older fans to cry out “sellout” or “water-down” in dismay. I’m not one of them, but I can easily tell you that I prefer the hyperspaced-out sludge of, say, “Celestial”, than the complex but more subdued melodies and interplay of “Wavering Radiant” or “In the Absence of Truth”, feeling that the material is less powerful, less poetic than the cruel, almost inhuman beauty displayed in the band’s first recordings.

Well, folks, this exact material, within the framework of a live setting, becomes an almost religious experience for the unprejudiced listener. Look, I’m not talking here about density of sound and volume (although there’s plenty of both); neither do I talk about professionalism (which is clearly abundant). I’m talking about LIVE performances that transcend the material, turning it into a whole so big that it’s almost impossible to convey its order of magnitude in simple language. The band does not just plays the songs –which come mostly from the two latter works, plus a few cuts from “Panopticon”-, it infuses them with its own essence, the flesh, bone, cartilage, blood and brains of the five guys on stage.

Never was a band so clearly devoted to its music. Never was a band so transcendentally heavy or so delicately heart-rending during a concert, as Isis where for almost 80 minutes on the stage of FUZZ Club. The band as a unit is peerless in its passion, professionalism, power, heaviness and detail. Each member is an exceptional musician (with drummer Aaron Harris getting the summa cum laude for his nuanced, powerful, energetic and versatile performance) who’s dedicated in getting to the songs’ souls and offering them to the audience. Aaron Turner’s (whose new look was something of a shock to us elders…) anguished howl and his restrained singing added new dimensions to songs that are already pathos-infused. And during the times that the band REALLY let go, their sludge/post-rock/acid/doom/fuckall music engulfed the venue in equal and concurrent measures of celestial beauty and unbelievable malice.

No, they didn’t play anything from “Celestial” or “Oceanic”. Didn’t matter. The way they treated the new(er) material was enough. It was enough for me to decide that: a) Isis is one of the most important, creative and powerful bands of our time (…as if I didn’t already know that) and b) that anyone who hasn’t seen them live should remedy this HUGE dereliction IMMEDIATELY!!! One of the best live bands, and then some…

P.S.: on the day of the concert Mike Gallagher had his birthday, so…

9,5

Witnessed