Isis
Temporal

THE REVIEW

Time is decline. Anyone who tells you otherwise is shamelessly lying to you. Time tends to gray things, it deteriorates them, boredom becomes the master of our days, and new things not only thin out but become evanescent. And then comes the moment to observe what has been.

On July 13, 2009, I was a different person. Who wasn't? I don't know, but I certainly was. I attentively watched each of their faces emerge and drown among the lights on the stage at Spazio 211, looking at them as if it were my last concert. Or maybe theirs. Pronounced shadows painted their faces even when they were fully illuminated, the signs of discomfort were hidden somewhere, tending to emerge. But that's what Isis has always been. A sense of impending end among the ethereal flows hidden between blocks of concrete and inhuman screams, a curse, a malediction, and a feeling of salvation that forms a circle around the musical instruments. 

And then comes the moment to leave the concert. And to remember how those crescendos were, which bridged an eternal damnation and a clear summer sky where the air burns your nostrils. And sometimes you tend to forget forms and details that you wish had stayed within you. You can only try to cling to the shreds of the memory.

Then you return to the homes we have abandoned. When something ends, you tend to not want to see each other for a while, the usual pauses to let the myriad of feelings boiling beneath the skin cool down. And so you return, hoping not to run into anyone, to recover something that used to be ours. And instead, you end up all together. Looking at each other not knowing what to say, sketching some smile while, with the box in hand, you mentally note what you've forgotten. And you find things that, in the end, make everyone feel good. Things that we don't want to be scattered here and there inconclusively and randomly. Then the thought of a legacy to those who still want to see, hear, experience who we have been is due. Especially if one has been an influence. You find tapes, recordings 10 years old with the songs that drove us crazy as kids, others more recent, something reworked by friends, you find videos, photos, you laugh one last time over a memory, over the twist of a chord, over a studio error. Then you remember everything. And everything ends up in a gray and sad box. Sad like some music, beautiful like some stories you've heard and don't remember where. And everyone leaves when the sun has already set, someone moves towards an avenue lined with palms, beneath which a friend awaits them in a car, someone returns to an exciting past, someone simply returns home alone.

Time sucks. But sometimes it helps to become better. Just remember.