Panopticon

(Originally posted by me to the Metal Music Archives: http://www.metalmusicarchives.com/)

Oh the things for a single college boy of 18 years to do while he is on spring break. I decided to take one of these days and hike to the top of a tall, rocky hill that overlooks the entirety of the town of Bedford and more in the valley below and beyond. Moreover, I wanted to use this scenic view as visual inspiration for a written review of Isis' Panopticon. So I packed up my notebook, my iPod, two bottles of water, and a sandwich. An hour later, I was at the designated spot.

I actually acquired a copy of Panopticon during the summer of 2011 at my favorite CD store in Princeton, New Jersey for $9.99 new. I liked its scenic, post rock atmosphere mixed with sludgey yet calm metal riffs. In fact, the albums's art of a scenic, panoramic view of a large landscape is what eventually influenced me to hike up here on this hill, find a comfortable spot amongst these rocks, and write this review.

And actually, the view of the town, some highways, partial forests, and open farm fields fits really well for the atmosphere of Panopticon. If I was looking at a 100% natural view like a great, vast forest or something, I'd probably be reviewing something like Blood of the Black Owl or Agalloch instead (hmm...ideas...).

This album's main advantage when conveying its atmosphere is that it is based on instrumentation. In other words, the lasting effect of the vocals on this album is very weak. They're there, but they only do one or two stanzas per song. The most is probably three in "Wills Dissolve" and "Syndic Calls". The convenient thing about the vocals though is that while the lyrics aren't easy to pick out and sing along to, they're still capable of at least being hummed along to.

On the instrumental side, all songs are played at a nice, slow-mid pace and never change tempo in the course of a single song. The riffs are varied, however, and seem to build up an atmosphere in each songs before reaching a climax in its final minutes. Guitar tone switched comfortably back and forth in each song from calm sounding post rock guitar and sludge metal riffs. Also adding to the atmosphere is a well utilized keyboard and decently audible bass. All this coagulates into the atmosphere of the album and, by extension, the panoramic view on the album art and of my own view of Bedford.

Any album that inspires me to hike through the woods and up a steep, rocky hill to write a review utilizing the view I get from the top definitely is worthy of my praise. Panopticon is definitely one of the best atmospheric sludge metal albums out there, and an obvious necessity for fans of the genre. And I'm definitely glad I got this little adventure early in this week, because it's raining later; and when it's not raining, I'm going to be working.

For a musiclover it is pretty hard to name all-time-favourites, but if I had to, ISIS's third studio album "Panopticon" would definately be among my top five. When I saw this incredible band live in 2004 just after the release of "Panopticon", I had already been a fan of their previous efforts for quite some time, but hearing these tracks live for the first time was a crucial experience for me. Those who have had the chance already to see ISIS live will surely agree that there is a special, strong atmosphere, when this band hits the stage.

For those who are not familar with their music, ISIS started out in 1997 as a Sludge-/Hardcore-Band with a rather noisy approach. Later on they evolved towards a more experimental, post-rock-sound influenced by bands like NEUROSIS or GODSPEED YOU ! BLACK EMPEROR. While their first two albums "Celestial" and "Oceanic" were already outstandingly great albums, it was "Panopticon" in my humble oppinion, which took this developement-process to its conclusion. Without lacking the heaviness of former works (as I sadly have to say about their lates output "In the Absence of Truth") they succeed in implanting more and more post-rock-influenced clean-guitar-parts and clear sung vocals to their monolithic sludge-riffing and hardcore-screams. In addition to the virtuose guitar-,bass- and drum-work ISIS would top this record off with electronic ambient parts, most prominent in the fourth song "Wills Dissolve". The outcome of this cocktail is an hour of epic and monumental, modern heavy music.I think it is the duality and the contrast between the atmospheric, soothing parts and the utter heaviness, which let both elements affect the listener in this intensity.

While the predecessor "Oceanic" was centered around the concept (who would have ever imagined?) of the ocean and the feeling and emotions of a suicider drowning himself it it, "Panopticon" is based on the idea of a circular prison developed by the British philosopher Jeremy Bentham, in which the inspector could see all prisoner at all time without being seen himself. This concept was later taken on and developed by Michel Focault in his book "Discipline & Punish - The Birth of the Prison". Both are quoted in the booklet along with the social and political critic and writer Howard Rheingold and the award-winning futurist Alex Steffen. It is not hard to understand that the main topic here deals with the danger and fear of a surveillance state based on new technologies in our nowadays and future society. While this theme might be rather pressing and political Isis succed in staying with a rather philosophical instead of agitative approach.

It is hard to name outstanding tracks because all songs are somewhat remarkable and still the whole album works perfectly as an entity. But it is to be mentioned that Justin Chancellor of Tool (for which ISIS played the support slot on their "10.000 Days"-tour in 2006) is featured as guest on the bass guitar in the instrumental track "Altered Course". Points of criticism? There are hardly any I could come up with. Maybe it will take some time for some to get into this album because of the complexity of the material, but that's not really to be seen negative. The bottom line is that I can do nothing but recommend "Panopticon" to any fan of heavy, atmospheric music, it's that simple!

There are probably few records about that are as conceptually sophisticated, thought-provoking and relevant in this age of wall-to-wall CCTV camers, politicians banging the drum for national ID cards and excessive airport security (which in the case of one unfortunate New York City woman in Arizona not so long ago in 2007 proved fatal) yet still musically tough and disciplined and in sound heavy, as Isis's "Panopticon". First thing you notice about this album is the design of the CD sleeve insert which ingeniously incorporates two spy cam photographs of a city taken from a plane or a helicopter flying overhead, plus quotations by famous philosophers Jeremy Bentham and Michel Foucault among others on the concept of a circular prison.

For those who aren't philosophically inclined but want a quick intro as to why these worthies are quoted, Bentham was an English philosopher who was in favour of law reform and who criticised social institutions and practices including forms of punishment popular in his time (the early 1800's) yet paradoxically designed prisons and proposed the idea of the panopticon, the circular prison where prisoners are made to watch, guard and even punish one another. Michel Foucault was a 20th centuryFrench philosopher who investigated the idea of what it means to be an individual and argued that the concept of "self" or individuality depends a great deal on systems of power and technology that ultimately imprison us, hence his interest in the idea of the circular prison where we are persuaded by advertising and politicians that we are free individuals but at the same time have (maybe even need) a Big Brother or Nanny state watching over us and encouraging us to spy and snitch on one another.

Now for the actual album: "Panopticon" is a very grand, mostly instrumental panorama of often atmospheric post-hardcore metal with well-structured highs and lows in the music. Initially I thought the tracks were not all that distinctive in themselves and they do tend to blend or overlap quite a bit so it's possible to listen to the whole album as one long track which probably fits in well with the album's theme; repeated listenings though do reveal some differences among the long tracks so this is a record that needs and rewards repeated hearings. In looking for "individual" tracks, I may of course be presuming that having "individual" tracks is a good thing but on an album like this that quotes Foucault, maybe I had better refrain from that approach. The music starts off as hard-hitting and technically precise hardcore-influenced metal with clear-ish vocals but over the course of the album the music seems to get more trancey, the singing becomes more distant and inhuman and atmospheric effects work their way into the guitar riffs. Songs may cascade from bursts of fuzzed guitar to quiet contemplative passages of crystal-clear pure guitar tones which in turn are swept away by tidal waves of more heavy guitar abetted by FX pedals. Moments of near-acoustic suspense, fear and paranoia build up into circular-tower mountains of riffing and gurgly singing on tracks like "Backlit" and "In Fiction": these are controlled to give just enough of an impression of uncertainty, foreboding and oppressive police state presence. Any more and Isis would certainly risk going over into melodrama and pretentiousness.

The production is right for this recording, it's clear and technically top-notch, allowing the band to hunker down in intimate near-acoustic corners with pure, almost ringing guitar tones, and then to suddenly expand, Big Bang-style, inot vast reaches of the sonic universe with tsunami wave after crashing tsunami wave of snarling, spiralling guitars, deep bass and insistent thudding drums. This epic approach reinforces the all-embracing oppression and paranoia: the circular prison reaches to and embraces all reality, and is vast and never-ending, yet it takes note of every small thing you do and think. Sounds very much like how some children learn about the Christian God - but no, we won't go into that territory at this point!

Probably the pivotal track is the all-instrumental "Altered Course" which has some brightly sparkling melodic tremolo guitar and seems to be more hopeful and positive than the rest of the album. This is also the most ambient-oriented track and presents Isis at their most epic atmospheric post-hardcore Godspeed You Black Emperor likeness: the brooding suspenseful parts are at their most mysterious, most brimming with hope for escape or freedome; the music sounds multi-dimensional with atmospheric effects; and unexpectedly the track drifts off into a dreamy space-ambient stratosphere.

With an album like this, there's no happy ending but the journey is more important than whether we make it out of our prisons (physical, mental, emotional, whatever) or not. We travel to the highest and farthest reaches of the Panopticon and descend into its innermost niches and abysses and discover this prison may be more complex and far-reaching than maybe even Isis and the gentlemen they quote on the CD inner sleeve can ever have imagined.

With Oceanic ISIS single handedly created the worlds first ever post-metal album. The obvious move would be to progress on the previous album, and create an album with a fresh sound, that still related to the previous album. This inevitably gave way to "Panopticon."

Panopticon follows the precedent set by Oceanic, as far as tempo goes. While sometimes the songs may feel faster, they generally run at the same, slower tempo. Again, the songs tend to be around the 8 minute mark. What makes Panopticon so different, is some songs tend to progress at a faster rate. Now this doesn't mean that they are part of that instant gratification, where the whole song is a climax, instead the songs are carefully crafted to feel as though they are always moving forward (with the exception of "In Fiction," which is one of my favorites anyways). One element that seems to be missing from Oceanic is that the album does not progress song to song. Instead each song is its own seperate element (though they are linked through ambience). With that said, "Grinning Mouths" is a grand finale to the album (it is one exception, it sums up the whole album in one magnificent song).

Once again, the recording quality is great. The guitars are crunchy when they need to be, but the clean guitars are still bright when they come in. The tone seems to be a bit less sludgy than Oceanic, but is still a but sludier than you would expect from most other bands. The drums are still organic. It sounds highly unlikely that any loops are used, as each drum pattern has that one thing added with each bar that passes.

While the mixing in Oceanic was fantastic, the mixing of Panopticon is even better. Somehow they found the perfect balance between ambience and instruments. Each instrument has its own part, and it shows through the mixing. This time around the bass is noticable from the rest of the instruments. Instead of mixing everything to the lower register, each part seems to have a different register, allowing for a better listening experience. Dynamics are a large part of this album. There are loud climaxes and quiet builds, and each is mixed accordingly. All in all, another fantastic job of mixing the album.

Panopticon has a different feel than "Oceanic." I found instead of having a dark album that gave a few happy parts to create intense emotion, Panopticon seems to have a neutral, almost spacey feel, but there are still some parts that create a happy, intense emotion. It seems in Panopticon that the mood is extremely influenced by the ambience that is always present in each track. This ambience is extremely apparent in tracks such as "Wills Dissolve" or "Syndic Calls" where the intro is largely ambience. This creates a full listening experience, that I have not found in any album as of yet.

One huge improvement over "Oceanic" (in my oppinion anyways) is the introduction of clean vocals from Aaron Turner. His clean vocals, as seen in "Backlit" can be soothing, just as they can be inticing (during "In Fiction" for example). Aaron Turner still makes use of his growl to increase "excitement" (if it can be called that, maybe rising action or climax fits better...) during the track.

Lyrically this album revolves around the idea of the Panopticon, a prison where each inhabitant could be watched by a single person (but does not know if he/she is being watched). This creates an almost omniscient feeling with the album. The lyrics are, once again rather scarce compared to the song length. They tend to be almost ambiguous, which ultimately lets the audience take from the album what they wish.

One thing to note about this album is the beauty of the rising action. Each song has its own build, and ends in its own fantastic climax. Though it is extremely hard to explain how this adds to the overall feel, it is important to note that ISIS redifined the idea of the climax. Each song has a different, but completely distinguishable climax. The feeling of these climaxes is absolutely magnificent, and can only be fully understood by hearing a song off the album (I can't post any music here due to copyright laws, but look on some websites like www.last.fm or www.pandora.com to get some songs). The feel of the album gives "celestial" a whole new meaning.

Ultimately this is a great album for anyone that loves post-rock. Where as "Oceanic" tended to be largely a sludge-metal kind of post-metal, this album leans much more towards post-rock than it does post-metal. The highlights are definately the subtle additions to some of the guitar tracks. The grand finale of "Grinning Mouths" is one of the best ISIS songs to date (in my oppinion anyways). With that said, those who absolutely hate any kind of growling will find some of this album repulsive as there are a few parts where he still has his extremely aggressive vocals.

This review was originally wrote for my review blog http://the-post-rock-review.blogspot.com.

Atmospheric sludge kings Isis burst forth in utter confidence in this album, pulling no punches to deliver a beautiful and haunting piece of metal art.
Not for lovers of the conventional, I will warn you, nor for those with small attention spans. This album demands a lot of attention if you truly want to appreciate it and pick up on the subtle things. Although not totally void of vocals the album tends to be mainly instrumental.
It is something different. Brutally heavy and adversely soft at times, you’re in for a journey.


Track 1, So Did We, wastes no time in beginning its onslaught on your ears, straight away all instruments charging a deep rhythm. Following is a quieter segue which seems to build up for an eternity, a pleasant eternity, with guitars playing over each other melodies and eventually into a swapping rhythm.
Chillingly cold, yet welcoming guitars slice in and the vocals layer over the top and still the build up is developing. It seems the song is a beautiful ever-changing build up, the harsh parts just as spine-chilling as the echoed, soft, spacious interludes.
The reverb is perfect on this track adding an almost atmospheric quality and it’s not at all cheesy.
The build-up at a climax and then the track ends and you can’t wait to hear the next.


Backlit welcomes you in, takes your coat and says ‘Take a seat’ as it’s soft, warm intro takes it’s course, again a build-up, this time with more prominent bass.
In no time you’re struck with a heavier passage, not at all unwelcome, covered in the unique vocals of Mr. Turner.
And old radio sound in reverb smothers one of the guitars, softening its blow only to be the calm before the storm where Aaron’s vocals really kick in, blistering and raw, yet so beautiful.
This tracks chorus is layered with cymbals, the whole track littered with a high-pitched snare with just the right amount of production.
A beautiful build-up, with nuances of melody seems the highlight of this track underlaid with impressive drumming and again prominent bass lines and peaking with vocals.


In Fiction has the softest intro yet, layered in reverb and subtleties, lasting an age, but not disinteresting. The vocals, now grunty, layer of the soft passage, which to no surprise doesn’t stay soft for long.
It branches out into a beautiful 1,2,3 - 1,2,3 - 1,2,3 - 1,2,3,4,4,4,4 loud, prominent, even bright kind of pattern to which you’ll have to listen to for yourself to know what I mean.
This track is not without a beautifully, nuance-ridden, deep, rhythmic flair peaking and eventually ending the epic song.


The almost minimalist first impression I got from the next track dissolved (pun intended? Maybe) when its progressivness took over, transforming the riffs.
It revisits creepy, clean melodies definitely adding atmosphere and feeling.
That feeling is brought out even more so when this tracks build-up ensures a heavy overlay, mimicking the melody aforementioned.
The vocals on this track seem almost ritualistic but fit into the mix well.


The other tracks on the album are as you’d expect, similar but bringing something new to the table each time.


This album seems more creative, melodic and not as harsh as their previous albums. In my opinion they have progressively gotten softer (though no less passionate) with each album, with this album sitting about the middle of the spectrum, so it can really be appreciated by fans of the old OR new Isis.


This is a great album and if you like Isis there’s no doubt you’ll like this album, even if it’s only a select few tracks or moments that take your fancy.

So, Panopticon arrives in the mail along with around twenty other albums that were purchased around various recommendations that were made in passing by a few fellow forum-goers. Never having heard the band before and not having much of an idea what to expect, I rip away the plastic wrap, pop the disc into my DVD drive, rip it, and get to listening.

For the next hour, I would be subject to the aural equivalent of a majestic ocean body slowly swallowing the very foundations of the Earth, leaving in its wake a vast landscape of weeping sorrow and glimmering hope. That magnificent and devastating ocean has a name - and that name is Isis.

Now, I don't have much of a clue as to where to go with this thing. Isis is not a hard band to describe, but it is very difficult to truly capture the essence of the sounds that extend from their instruments. Their music is a mostly instrumental, atmospheric, shifting beast that at times seems to extend out from your speakers and develop a sense of physical mass. This is heavy music... not the kind of heavy that slams you against the wall and leaves you with a splintered skull, but the kind of heavy that embraces and envelops you, weighs down on your very senses, and forcefully sweeps you away into the dark unknown. There are no double-bass runs, there are no blast beats, there are no solos, there are no "riffs"; there are only dense soundscapes littered with kinetic walls of aural energy, ambient stretches of space, and gently ringing guitars that embody the calm before the storm and make you welcome the inevitable devastation that is surely forthcoming.

The perfect display of all these things is in the opening track, "So Did We". The song comes in with a slow, simple drum pattern and reasonably heavy guitars that are soon joined by Aaron Turner's distant, hardcore-ish yells. Turner is surprisingly unobtrusive, so people who have an aversion to this kind of vocal style shouldn't have much to fear. Regardless, this only goes on for around thirty seconds before the vocals cut out, the distortion disappears, and twin guitars come in with interweaving melodies that continue onwards, shifting, morphing, and changing until a bit past the two minute mark, where the music lapses back to a sound similar to the introductory passage. At three minutes, one guitar takes on a sort of sludgy droning, while the other rings clearly in the forefront, creating an eerie and moving aural scene. Soon, the droning transforms into a wash of noisy guitar atmospherics that blend smoothly into the background, while the tranquil reverberations retain their prominence in the foreground. At just under four minutes, the background guitar suddenly comes to the front and quickly diminishes into a short stretch of feedback, before fading out and being replaced once again by clean twin guitar tapestries that weave in and out of each other to create a melancholy, sorrow-filled stretch of airy music that evolves and builds on itself until just past the six minute mark. At this point, everything hits a climax and explodes into a wall of sound so enormous that it escapes from your headphones, clings to your walls, and begins to slowly close in on you from the outside, the weeping guitars and powerful cymbal washes enveloping you so wholly that you cannot help but to let go and lose yourself in the vastness of it all. It's utterly massive, soul crushing music. I cannot express enough the kind of impact the last few minutes of this song has on me. It's unreal. Indescribable. If you only hear one Isis song in your life, hear this one.

...and that, to one degree or another, is the sound of Isis. Unfortunately, this is the absolute high point of the album... and it's a shame that the band hits their peak so early. However, don't take that the wrong way. The rest of the album maintains a consistent and dynamic flow of quality, it just never really surpasses the celestial beauty and power of "So Did We" (save for possibly "In Fiction", which is also absolutely tremendous).

The instrumentation across Panopticon is very minimalistic. There is no doubt in my mind that the guys in Isis can play should the need arise, but all the sounds on this album lend to the creation of mood and atmosphere, to the creation of the overbearing leviathan that forebodes the devastation and reconstruction of our modern musical landscape. It's so refreshing in today's mess of musical superficiality to see a bunch of young guys get up on a stage and channel this kind of artistic energy amongst themselves. I applaud them for that.

Essential recording. Absolutely essential.

After completely flooring an all-too-small set of metalheads (initially including myself, I must admit) with 2002’s mighty “Oceanic”, Isis faced the unenviable task of having to do it again. Stylistically, fans may have been uncertain as to what sort of evolving Isis would do in the two long years between albums, but as for quality – it had better be some damn good stuff they were giving us. And really, who can blame fans for wanting nothing short of near-perfection, especially in light of the band’s astoundingly impressive track record up to that point. Lesser acts may have faltered badly under such circumstances, getting crushed by the wheels of the juggernaut that is high expectations. Not Isis – no, instead they just proceeded to give us an album the likes of which I realistically had no right to expect, all the while cementing their position as proof positive that metal in the 21st century extends comfortably beyond traditional realms (death, power, thrash, etc.). It does take a while to sink in – like you expected anything else? – and it can appear at times to be one bloated, meandering leviathan of a mess. Don’t let that deter you from experiencing “Panopticon”, for the effort you exert in digesting this beast is repaid in full a hundred times over.

For those who have never heard Isis, understand that describing their music is inherently difficult to do in anything approaching a satisfactory way. I’ve seen much better writers than myself try and fail, so I’ll just take the lazy way out and recommend you download a couple of songs. Just don’t expect anything rigidly structured or traditional in nature and you should be fine. Various descriptions paint them as “atmospheric sludge”, and while this phrase is certainly appropriate it is also quite confined. The term sludge itself implies a certain subset of doom in which a lurching tempo is favored. Well, Isis songs do have plenty of “slow” parts, but to focus on tempo is really to miss the point completely. In that same sense, it’s not really doom metal either, for I’d say they play more of a melodically “quiet” style than a “slow” style. For that matter, let’s just say the hell with any sort of traditional classifications, because it just ain’t going to work here, folks. If you’ve heard Neurosis, Red Sparowes, Pelican, or bands of that nature, then picture something along those lines. Of course, if you’ve heard and enjoy any of those bands, chances are that you already have this and aren’t wasting your time with this review.

The essential challenge in crafting a work such as this is keeping things interesting. Indeed, when your shortest song is a little under seven minutes and you’ve got an hour’s worth of material, you’d better know how to write a song with substance AND style. Furthermore, look at some of the lyrics. Two verses total for an eight minute song? Clearly there’s going to be a lot of “downtime”, if you will. This is where Isis, much like instrumental all-stars Pelican, shine brightest. I will say that these songs are the complete antithesis of what I refer to as “driving songs”. You know the kind – speedy, short tracks that are exciting but lack real staying power or creative zest. With Isis you’re probably more likely to find yourself in a coma-induced wreck. Mind you, that coma, for a near-perfect 59:04, is simply wonderful. And that is the main point here. Music such as this is meant to transcend the basic notion of artistic expression – really, it becomes a sort of journey by which you get lost in the desolate atmosphere the band so elegantly creates. Forget things like hooks and catchy choruses, because there aren’t any to be found here.

As for the specifics of this thing, it’s still Isis. Songs are composed of mainly slow, drawn-out sections featuring sparse drumming and even sparser vocals. Despite the often laborious pace, the guitar work is still exquisite. These guys don’t just lay down chords with their instruments. They use them to develop the dominantly sorrowful atmosphere this thing is so drenched in. Don’t expect any furious double-bass kicks, blastbeats, traditional guitar solos – none of that stuff is here. Isis do not need it. What you can expect, however, is a nice mix of hardcore-ish shouting and clean vocals, with the clean parts especially well done (more clean vocals on the next one, please!). Don’t worry if you hate shouting vocals – I was the same way and I love this stuff. Besides, you’ll rarely notice them.

I suppose Isis aren’t for everyone. If your metal collection consists solely of death, thrash, or power metal, then you may hate this stuff. Actually, Isis will challenge your preconceived notions of what exactly constitutes heavy metal. They’re slow, but not really doom metal. They certainly aren’t very heavy in the sense that you likely won’t be accused of listening to mindlessly incessant noise. Almost entirely instrumental for much of the album, the vocals, such a focal point on most metal albums, are of very little import here. The significance of these songs extends far beyond any one aspect of the creation. If you are an open-minded and patient metalhead, I would urge you to set aside an hour in which to experience “Panopticon”. In the end you probably won’t remember a single song from the album. For most metal albums this would be infinitely damning, but for Isis it’s a complement. “Panopticon” is one of those rare albums that simply shatters the pop-radio-induced notion that music is no longer an art form, but an entertainment form. The fact of the matter is, Isis manages to be both impressively artistic and damn entertaining at the same time. Just give it a chance and you’ll be rewarded.

One my first review, I only gave this 90%, but repeated listens have revealed how damn good this album is, so I thought I needed to redo my review.

This album is a masterpiece, with every second perfectly done, every instrument playing the perfect bit at the right time. There's a kind of jammy thing going on in this record that Isis never had in previous records. Isis seem content to lose themselves in open space, and the album seems to be the better for it. While the heavy parts are amazing, the cleaner, mellower parts are what make this album so great.

The album starts off with a really brutal beginning. The first 30 seconds of "So Did We" are really heavy, but after that bit, the guitars move into a great clean part, with some excellent guitar/drum interplay. So Did We is a good summing up of the album, because it's really heavy in some parts, and beautiful and clean in some parts. The riff that goes form 1:38 to 2:19 is amazingly beautiful, probably one of the best clean things I've ever heard played. THe song moves into heaviness again, before cleaning up and then ending in a boom. There's no choruses, no verses, just an amazing progression through different soundscapes.

All of the other songs follow a similar kind of structure. Some start off really quiet and moody (Eg In Fiction) before building up into a dense wall of noise. Some take the other route. Altered Course starts off heavy, and slowly builds up, before turning itself into a beautiful trance song, which slowly builds up over 6 minutes. The first 4 minutes of Altered Course are probably the best music you will ever hear, and the album is worth getting just for that.

There's not a single moment of bad music here. Isis have evolved into a band that writes painfully beautiful music. Gone are the doomy riffs of Celestial, and for the most part, the screamed vocals are gone too, replaced by some amazing singing by Aaron Turner. This album is absolutely essential, everyone needs to hear this album before they die.

Isis is a great, great band. Their early material (SGNL 05 and Celestial) was ahead of its time and 2002’s stunning ‘Oceanic’ topped my best list for that year. Needless to say, the imminent arrival of its follow up ‘Panopticon’ was a major highlight for me. I had massive expectations.

It’s a rather difficult thing to describe the music of Isis. To the straight up metal head, they’re probably too cerebral. Certainly, they have a massive appeal to the metal fan base, but calling them a metal band is just too narrow. Perhaps that’s why they sit so comfortably on a label like Mike Patton’s Ipecac. All uniquely different heavy music bands seem to reside on his roster (Fantomas, Melvins). Isis is one of those bands.

For the metal fan that likes to explore musical paths beyond the typical standard, then acts like Neurosis and Cult of Luna are your obvious comparison with Isis. The ball park they all play in is a massively broad and expansive one, but the objective is still the same – to create imaginative, wide reaching compositions that entice and mesmerize the listener with a depth and creativity that very few other ‘heavy’ bands can muster.

Panopticon is another amazing step in the life of this band. It has the same atmospheric feel of ‘Oceanic’, but with some subtle differences. If anything, Isis seem to treading the ‘less is more’ path that Neurosis so eloquently captured on their ‘ A Sun that Never Sets’ disc and took to even more exploratory heights with ‘The Eye of Every Storm’. By this I mean that Isis are content to be even more deliberate in how they combine both their mellow and heavy elements. ‘Panopticon’ is a much sparser sounding album – there is more air in the music and much more low, slow and moodier sections throughout. In true Neurosis style, these mellower parts make Isis’ heavier sections all the more powerful and dramatic. Isis have an amazing ability to make their compositions build to hulk-like crescendo’s, using lush, layered melodies, brooding ‘Tool-like’ bass lines and an unnerving mature, if slightly buried vocal performance from Aaron Turner.

As a direct comparison to the phenomenal ‘Oceanic’, ‘Panopticon’ sounds like a much cleaner record. Their raw, chaotic Noisecore elements that so enamored their earlier material are now only part of their whole Isis picture. No doubt, their trademark sound is still very much intact, it’s just that Isis are now becoming more progressive in the use of light and shade in their music. As a result, ‘Panopticon’ is slightly more unpredictable in the turns that it makes; there is more intensity, intricacy and depth in everything they do.

It is hard to imagine where Isis will go to after this album. I remember questioning the Neurosis path after the colossal ‘Through Silver in Blood’ disc. I thought that was it for them. How wrong was I? I hope Isis has the same effect. I’m not sure if ‘Panopticon’ is as grand as ‘Oceanic’ sound wise, but certainly, it has the same hypnotic impact. Fans of truly expansive, progressive music with passion and intensity in equal parts will find the world of Isis extremely inviting. For me, the expectations have been met!

originally written for www.pyromusic.net

With 2002’s release of Oceanic, I knew this band was headed for something really amazing, if that wasn’t it already. The way they had evolved from their previous albums kind of foreshadowed what their next album may bring. This album is significantly softer than previous releases, but I assure you it is still metal. You may have noticed Oceanic started this trend, with a little more clean vocals, some clean instrumental parts in the songs, and overall less total raw hardcore chaotic guitar madness. Panopticon continues with even more clean vocals as before. The clean vocals are rough and usually not so harmonious (but they have improved a lot since Oceanic), but they’re best that way. And Isis’ vocals are usually “behind” the music instead of “in front” of it, focusing more on the music. If you have Oceanic already, you probably know what I mean. Most of the album, like Oceanic, is instrumental (I’d say about three-fourths). This however has a lot more progressive, complex, unpredictable song structures, showcasing the band’s pure evolution and intense depth. Even though the guitars are generally not as heavy, or heavy for as long, they have so much more depth and intricacy. There are much more post-rock like clean instrumental passages, for a sort of post-metal sound.

This vast masterpiece kicks off with “So Did We,” which may be a candidate for one of my top 25 or 50 songs ever (Not that I keep track). It is probably the best new song I’ve heard this year, and Isis’ best song to date. It reminds you that Isis is still metal by starting off with a pounding heavy riff and sudden hardcore-style vocals. This continues for a very short time until the heaviness abruptly stops and makes way for one of the best instrumental passages Isis have created. After that, it gets heavier again with some pretty good clean vocals. Then for five more minutes it is nothing but instrumental, it keeps on changing and shifting and evolving... couldn’t be better. When you finally get to the end of this song, it sounds absolutely nothing like what it did when it started, which is how music should be.

“Backlit” starts off very melodic and much different from anything Isis have done, and continues on that way; it’s a nice new direction for the band. There are a lot of clean vocals here that actually sound good and melodic, including a part where he keeps switching between hardcore and clean (probably the best part of the song). This song continues on with many instrumental parts with some exceptional melodies and the song ends with a bombardment of heaviness.

“In Fiction” starts off very calmly, kind of similarly to “Weight” on Oceanic. It gradually adds rhythm and layers, and doesn’t have any vocals for the first 4 minutes. Then it starts coming alive with the addition of some clean vocals and keeps progressing amazingly. A very solid song. It cleverly shifts right into “Wills Dissolve” which also starts off calmly with a somewhat pensive and eerie feeling, then a very haunting, clean melody surfaces – also a very different direction for the band. Again, the song steadily unfolds until it has a full sound with vocals, and there are some pretty good, straightforward (for a change) clean vocals here.

Again, the previous song switches to the next behind your back (a feature that always makes albums more epic, in my opinion). “Syndic Calls” is a very well-constructed song; the beginning of it just has that certain Isis vibe that I find once in a while. There is a small section with vocals and then a quite interesting instrumental part. When this song is almost over, there is a small amount of clean vocals over heavy guitars that come in at the perfect time to finish up the song. The buildup to this part is just magnificent. I have to say these are some of the most powerful of Aaron Turner’s clean vocals and probably the best he has done, even though it only lasts like 30 seconds. This particular song definitely goes by quickly, it definitely doesn’t seem like its 9 and a half minutes.

The last two songs make the album go downhill a little. “Altered Course” features Justin Chancellor from Tool on bass guitar. This is a 10-minute instrumental (well, 9:57 to be exact), the longest on the album. Unfortunately I have to say I don’t think this song is all that it could be. It starts off kind of suddenly and most of it seems very random and directionless. The individual parts are mostly very good, and there are some sweet riffs, it just seems like they don’t flow into each other too well. Also some of it just drones on too long with very little change. It is still very good, but the rest of the album is so perfect I can’t help but critique it. “Grinning Mouths” starts off suddenly and is another one without vocals for the first 4 minutes. It’s probably the worst song, there’s nothing particularly interesting about it, and I really do not like how it ends the album, it’s very sudden and un-climatic, nothing builds up to it. They should have saved the best for last, not the other way around. There’s a good chance these two songs will gradually grow on me, because it seems sometimes when I don’t like songs right away, they turn out to be better than ones I liked right away.

I don’t really like the track order on this album. Tracks 6 and 7 seem like they should be somewhere in the middle, because they are the least interesting, and I think “Syndic Calls” should end the album because it ends with a bang. Also I think “In Fiction” should start the album because it starts out really gradually and slowly, and “So Did We” is so good I don’t want to get it over with so quickly... but on the other hand it is nice to start out the album with a heavy rush instead of calm gradual progression. Since a few songs flow right into each other, it’s hard to come up with an alternate track order. But I am someone who likes to experiment with this and I have come up with both 1-2-6-7-3-4-5 and 3-4-5-1-6-7-2 and they are interesting to do once in a while. Try them out if you are able to pre-program the track order (like on Winamp)

I think fans of Tool who aren’t into much more obscure music yet would really enjoy Isis, this album especially. They have some similarities to Tool (and have a band member playing on this album) and are a few notches on the heavier side. I also think fans of Godspeed you Black Emperor, who are also into other metal, would really appreciate this album. If you’ve been a fan of Isis for a long time and said they have a lot of potential... this is where that potential has lead them. All the potential has been bundled up and released on this album. They have naturally evolved, most bands do, I think for the better. This is their best release yet and, I feel soon enough might be in my top 10 albums.