ISIS were a gateway band for me and they, along with a handful of others, are largely responsible for shaping my musical ‘tastes’ as they exist today. Originally introduced to ISIS by way of their unfuckable-with sophomore album, Oceanic,1 I then discovered that the fundamentals of ISIS‘ iconic, oft-copied-but-never-bettered sound were already fully formed on their debut LP, 2000’s Celestial. And while you might question whether a band forming today would still coalesce around the name ISIS2, there is no doubt that their debut was extremely well named. Its scope and scale take the listener on an incredible ride, which is much rougher around the edges than their later work but in many ways more experimental in its vision.
Following a trio of late 90s EPs, Celestial draws heavily on hardcore brutality, and is built around mountain-sized, hypnotically repetitive riffs. Combined with Aaron Turner’s harsh, harrowing howled vocals, Celestial had a raw heaviness to it which was buffed out of later ISIS records. That savagery was perfectly tempered, however, by delicately melodic, instrumental passages, slightly disturbing hoarse cleans from Turner (see “Glisten,” for example) and a number of off-kilter interludes, or “SGNL”s. Each gentle, soothing path, wending away from the brutality at Celestial‘s core, only heightened and emphasized the crushing, sludgy heaviness that you just knew would break over you again soon.
For me, the key to what ISIS did on Celestial, and continued to do on their later and more critically-acclaimed albums, was build anticipation: you could simply never tell how long ISIS would bear you away down a particular route before slamming you back to where you came from. Take “SWARM REIGNS (Down),” which bludgeons the listener with a fuzzed, angular riff from the get go, before it judders to an unexpected halt, leaving you beached on single, reverberating chords and unsettling electronic warblings. How long will you be left here, cast adrift, before ISIS return to pulping your grey matter with monolithic riffs? No idea – it could be 20 seconds, it could also be minutes away. While many bands attempt this, ISIS generate a sort of nervous tension, which builds and builds, while you wait for that abrasive riff to hit you again. And, on “SWARM REIGNS (Down),” when Turner’s hoarse bellow hits you between the eyes – after several minutes, in this instance – it’s almost a relief, a cathartic release. Sometimes though, as in the case of “Celestial (The Tower),” the last four minutes of which fall away into delicate instrumental and electronica, the heaviness doesn’t return. Even so, the energy remains.
Throughout Celestial, ISIS toy with listener expectations, as they continued to do throughout their career. With a sound that relies so heavily on mesmeric repetition, it’s easy to quickly get to a point where you think you know what is in ISIS‘ arsenal3 but time and again, their ability to subtly modulate their sound, coupled with the restraint to do so only sparingly, surprises you. Halfway into Celestial you may believe you have ISIS nailed but then “Deconstructing Towers” opens with a sense of urgency and what I would now call an early Mastodon-worthy stomp,4 overlaid onto syncopated drumming and all bets are off again. “Deconstructing Towers” then descends into uncomfortable white noise and static – almost like the transmission being interrupted – only for ISIS to begin piecing the sound back together, one component at a time.
In a recent interview, Turner said that there was a “willingness to experiment early on with ISIS. But as the band went on, our focus in some ways became more and more narrow.” And this freedom to play with influences is clear to hear on Celestial, which is a more challenging and, at times, uncomfortable listen than ISIS‘ later outings. The caustic, jagged edges of Celestial are driven by its hardcore influences, while incorporating elements of Neurosis‘ sound, together with experimental electronica. On their later masterpieces Oceanic and Panopticon, ISIS smoothed out many of these corners into a silky, rolling journey but, at this early point, it felt like ISIS were baring their teeth at you. ISIS may not be the sole creators of the post-metal genre as we know it today – Neurosis and Cult of Luna would have a thing or two to say about that – but it is undoubtedly true that with Celestial, ISIS laid one of the keystones on which that sound is built.
