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Rating: I insert the CD into my old CD player. I put on my headphones and crank it up. I turn off the light in my room and I'm ready for a new fascinating journey.
The Isis, an American band active since the beginning of the millennium, convey dark and gloomy atmospheres, slow and obsessive rhythms. It's pointless to try to pigeonhole this group into a predetermined musical genre recognized by critics. They are certainly influenced by the stoner movement and the doom/sludge one (do Electric Wizard and Mastodon ring a bell?) or by bands like the American Neurosis or the British Godflesh, but who cares?
The sound is magical and capable of penetrating the human psyche. True experimental music ("experimental action is the result of what is not expected" says John Cage) alternates with destructive guitar riffs. Ears bleed, the spirit dissolves.
The genius of Isis makes the unlucky listener bounce like a ball in a pinball machine in a psychedelic frenzy, because you can go from Commodore effect synth to metallic regurgitations, from strokes of nervous progressive to the dusted flavor of a western.
The disc stops. 50 minutes of pachydermic mental stasis but hours or eons of "celestial" journey exploring the desired meanders of non-being.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
02 Celestial (The Tower) (09:42)
Remit
Remit the signal
The flood is coming down
I can't hold it back
I can't see her
I can't even breathe
Even breathe
Breathe
The individual
Will drifts into space
And the signal
Fills it's void
Void
Black hole
The eyes of greater size
Than all the oceans
Do you ever get that feeling that you're sinking?
I do
03 Glisten (06:34)
Drawn in
Kneeling, scraping, praying
Her lips glisten
Anticipate
Glisten
Fall into
The burning noise and sting
Her jaws dripping
Sockets glowing
Glisten
That reach hasn't reached me
Her machine has reached me
(She's) Waiting for me to give in
Waiting for me to cease
08 Collapse and Crush (05:55)
Collapse the veins
Crush the heart
Snap the tendons
Dissolve the bones
Flood the brain
Burn the skin
Pierce the lungs
Collapse the body
Stars now beneath our feet
We've known the terror and still not stopped
Swarm down and forgive me
Rain down and forgive us
09 C.F.T. (New Circuitry and Continued Evolution) (05:42)
We became parts of a greater whole
The black hole sees a light
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Other reviews
By Hybris
This Celestial is their first album. 7 songs among which the 4 "sgnl>" alternate.
A promising start to a career in continuous ascent: if you didn’t like the subsequent Isis, you won’t miss much, but for everyone else, I recommend at least a listen.
By Bisius
The vibrations it emits, can you feel them...? You can. How? You don’t know, but you perceive them, passing right through you, infecting you.
This tower is cursed, so why did you enter?
