Rate this spiralling guitar haze

Isis – Panopticon

In addition to whatever current releases I decide to throw down the bob notes on I’ll also be doing retrospective reviews of other stuff that I’ve been getting along with just fine thank you very much. First up is the third album from Isis, the art metal outfit fronted by Hydra Head Records founder Aaron Turner.

Isis – Panopticon

I have a habit of perhaps over-indulging in certain bands if they push all the right buttons at the time of discovery. I’m sure everyone has felt this one way or another about certain music, you know those songs that really speak to you? How like, the music becomes in tune with your soul? Well hippy rubbish aside there are times when it certainly can be frustrating hearing about the latest “scene” band comprised of jumped-up seventeen-year-olds dressed in tight jeans and thinking that there are infinitely better bands out there worthy of attention – bands who are genuinely ahead of the curve, driven by a desire to push the limits of whatever musical constraints have been placed on them as a result of an easy pigeon-hole label.

It’s a wonderful feeling discovering such a band, the pure joy that comes from incessant listening all the while thinking how much these guys got it so right. Isis manage to tick so many boxes of particular elements which I enjoy in music it’s staggering; labyrinthine song structure, sludgy and heavy guitars, sparse use of electronic effects, instrumental focus with infrequent vocals, emphasis on tonality and harmony, deft production with immaculate attention to detail and spacing of the sound stage, unconventional lyrical themes, the emotive use of build-up and release in the song structure, lack of guitar solos…

This pretty much reads like an overall description of Isis’ entire body of work from their album Celestial onwards but it’s Panopticon that somehow takes the top spot. This is the album where the many facets of Isis shine through so brightly that the end product serves as a testament to how affective music can be when all the component parts are so expertly and thoughtfully considered.

Panopticon is expressly concerned with state control through surveillance and through this utilises one of Isis’ key themes of the control tower. Isis have a small palette of themes which are touched upon throughout their workand read like an alternative zodiac; the ocean, the mosquito, the woman, the control tower are perhaps the most prominent of all their themes. The vocals are often buried beneath layers of fuzzy guitars and are either plainly sung with no affectation or delivered in Aaron Turner’s trademark mixture of guttural barks and growls. The post-rock influenced guitars themselves favour long, repetitive note cycles in the same vein as Mogwai but are predominantly much heavier, often using a drop B tuning. Drums and bass offer little in the way of impressive technical flourishes, merely acting as an anchor for the gradual changes in timbre enacted by the other members of the band. Scant use of keyboards here and there embellish already bewitching soft guitar passages, in particular on the opening to “Wills Dissolve”, with stunningly beautiful results. All these things give Panopticon an air of great mystery and reverence, something dark and heavy pulses beneath it’s gorgeous and beguiling exterior.

The opening track “So Did We” kicks off with the band in full flow, guitars on maximum distortion, Turner’s vocals rough and insistent – but this burst of energy subsides just as quickly and soon transforms into a subdued exercise in shifting time signatures and modal guitar play, the track builds over some time before Turner steps up to the microphone once more. Isis have never been one for typical AABA song structures and it’s not unexpected to have a track feature a few lines of cryptic verse sung seemingly from the next room before embarking on a six minute crescendo with a brutal instrumental climax at the end of a piece that stretched for almost ten minutes. Over the course of the album tracks flow into one another, the complete disregard for conventional song structure gives Panopticon this symphonic edge where themes are introduced early on and explored over the course of an hour.

The first few movements of the album “So Did We”, “Backlit” and “In Fiction” follow the wonderful template that Isis have set and then the sparkling electronic effects at the start of “Wills Dissolve” signal a turning point. The mood becomes more introspective and all the more affecting and this continues for the remainder of the record. When the one-note guitar pattern takes over halfway through “Syndic Calls” the focus seems to change to the listener. The first half exposing the themes of the Panopticon and control tower and switch in the second half seems to try and gauge the listener’s reactions to these themes. The album has changed so subtly but it’s an incredibly emotional moment when this happens, the rambling guitar passages are now moments of reflection and bursts of heaviness seem placed as a reward for the listener as opposed to being a tool to emphasise the earlier vocal interjections.

“Altered Course”, Panopticon’’s only instrumental track continues in this fashion starting with bold, distorted guitars and shifts gradually into a more full-on sound. However the piece maintains this idea of introspection, the surveillance cameras from the central theme are now trained on the listener, and it changes into a heart-breakingly gorgeous piece involving a mantra of soft keyboards, unflinching tom and snare drumming and reverb-soaked ambient washes of guitars. The track dissolves over about five minutes and you’re left with waves of understated pads and guitar effects. The closer “Grinning Mouths” recapitulates the central themes and brings the album to a breathless finish, bringing vocals back into the mix and double-time chugging guitars.

This album is such a bold statement in music, not just in heavy metal circles. Isis absolutely rock when the mood takes them, they’re a band capable of formidable heaviness. The other side to Isis is one of hushed beauty and entrancing musicianship, a side which in my opinion you won’t see a finer example than on Panopticon.

Rated: 7 out of 7