ISIS – Temporal

All of your favourite bands will break up. Story of our lives, isn’t it? You wade through hordes of soulless, inoffensive, unimaginative tripe and just before you give up all hope, you see a light at the end of the tunnel in the form of your new favourite band. You latch on to them, so overwhelmed by the passion they exude and the euphoria they incite in you that you forget how long it took you to finally come across them. You give yourself to them as you would your first love, seeing absolutely no flaws in their work and defending them to the death against detractors. And then much like the first time you get dumped, they go and break up, citing “musical differences” and the like, the musical equivalent of “it’s not you, it’s me”. Isis are dearly missed to this day, such is their influence on the more other-worldly side of heavy metal. Taking the recipe laid out by Neurosis and adding subtle dashes of Melvins and Godflesh into the mix, they created a unique, sludgy blend of atmospheric post-metal that was distinctively theirs, and gave birth to one or two inarguable genre classics in the process (namely 2002’s utterly superb Oceanic). And so it seems a little odd that a band who lived and ultimately died by their own integrity would take the “B-Sides and rarities” route with Temporal. But let us not go into this with any rolling-eyed trepidation, for Isis were always at their best a band who had a perpetual ability to surprise us and, in stunning fashion, Temporal is no different.

The demo portion of the album arguably displays Isis in their true intended form, unpolished and as raw as the first day they got in a room together, with ‘Ghost Key’ (found in its finished state on Wavering Radiant, their final full-length) offering the opportunity to pay close attention to its incredible compositional work in the absence of Aaron Turner’s haunting vocals. We are also afforded a chance to hear virgin takes on two of the tracks that made up the career defining Oceanic, ‘Carry’ and ‘False Light’, often so cloaked in unadulterated fervour that it takes all of your strength not to be brought to tears by the unmistakeable power of their performance. Their adaptation of Godflesh’s previously thought inimitable ‘Streetcleaner’ is also something of a surprise, somehow injecting a song from a band that traded almost exclusively in uncompromising heaviness with a weight and lurch that the original cannot match, while their crushing interpretation of Black Sabbath’s ‘Hand Of Doom’ belies the notions of pretention that so many are too quick to slap onto the band. Elsewhere, the previously released remixes of ‘Not In Rivers, But In Drops’ and ‘Holy Tears’ are sparse, almost lo-fi re-imaginations against the sheer power of the originals but not overly essential, whereas ‘Way Through Woven Branches’ and ‘Pliable Foe’ from their 2010 split EP with Melvins showcase a lighter side to Isis that was seldom seen on their full-lengths. The title track of this collection, surely the most anticipated selection, is although painstakingly ambient a slight letdown given that it wasn’t unreasonably believed to be a lost recording from around the same era as Wavering Radiant. Instead, it is a two minute instrumental made up of shimmering guitar effects that would’ve worked brilliantly as an album interlude, but in the context of a rarities compilation simply seems like a pointless afterthought. However, the highlight of the second disc is undoubtedly the awe-inspiring acoustic version of ’20 Minutes/40 Years’, which serves not only as suitably downtrodden close to the collection but also reinforces the void that Isis left in their wake.

As usual with these kinds of things, Temporal is a mixed bag of sorts, that at once highlights the purity of Isis’ output and suggests that even the most inventive bands in the world don’t always get everything right. But the mere fact that most of what you get here was left off their major releases is testament to their overall decision-making process, and even when it’s not working, Temporal offers fascinating insight into one of the most important metal bands of the past 20 years.

Temporal is out now via Ipecac Recordings

7/10

Track Listing:

CD 1

01. Threshold Of Transformation (demo) *
02. Ghost Key (alternate demo version) *
03. Wills Dissolve (alternate demo version) *
04. Carry (demo) *
05. False Light (demo) *
06. Grey Divide (demo) *

CD2

01. Streetcleaner (GODFLESH cover, recorded in 1999)
02. Hand Of Doom (BLACK SABBATH cover, originally released on the “Sawblade” CD, 1999)
03. Not In Rivers, But In Drops (MELVINS/LUSTMORD remix; originally released on “Holy Tears”, 2007)
04. Holy Tears (Thomas Dimuzio remix; originally released on “Nirbid”, 2008)
05. Temporal (Recorded in 2009) *
06. Way Through Woven Branches (Originally released on MELVINS/ISIS split LP, 2010)
07. Pliable Foe (Originally released on MELVINS/ISIS split LP, 2010)
08. 20 Minutes/40 Years (Acoustic version) *

DVD (official music videos)

01. In Fiction
02. Holy Tears
03. Not In Rivers, But In Drops
04. 20 Minutes/40 Years
05. Pliable Foe *

* Previously unreleased