Listening to Isis’ music makes it hard to believe that heavy metal was once thought of as the musical genre of choice for meatheads. From their first recordings to their most recent album, In The Absence of Truth, the band has had every hallmark of intelligent music. They were also truly, destructively heavy.
Isis recently passed the 10-year mark as a band, and to celebrate, they’ve commenced a tour of both the East and West Coasts. As part of the tour, the band will be playing songs from all of their records, which means that for the first time in at least five years, you’ll be able to hear songs from the early records The Red Sea and Mosquito Control. Since it’s highly unlikely that the band will ever play these songs on tour again, this is the best time to see what Isis is all about.
Isis started out in the Boston, Mass. area in late 1997 by friends Aaron Turner (guitar), Aaron Harris (drums), Jeff Caxide (bass) and Chris Mereschuk (electronics). This lineup recorded a demo and released Mosquito Control in 1998. Then another EP, The Red Sea, was recorded with Jay Randall on electronics.
By 1999, the lineup solidified into its current incarnation with the addition of Bryant Clifford Meyer on electronics and Mike Gallagher on second guitar. They proceeded to record their first album, Celestial, and in 2002 released their genre-defining masterwork, Oceanic.
The album defined a new genre of “post-metal,” so named because of the influence of post-rock bands such as Mogwai. It was heavy and melodic, but still guitar-based.
In a phone interview, Harris talked about the difference between Isis’ early sound and their current music.
“When you play these old songs you realize ‘Wow, we’ve changed a lot.’ That stuff was just a lot more punishing and just angry, just on 10 all the time,” he said. “There’s so much more dynamics in the new music.”
And he’s right. The early EPs were a lesson in being monolithically heavy–just absolute pulverization of the standard guitar-sound. You might call it doom-metal, but really it was just about being extreme. That heaviness still exists in Isis’ music, but over the years the band has added melody and space to their sound. Their early music was dense and suffocating, but after Oceanic, Isis let their listeners (and their sound) breathe.
Harris notes the change: “In some eyes that’s an improvement, but some people prefer the older stuff too.”
Because Isis hadn’t played their earlier songs in so long, the band practiced and rehearsed five days a week for a month in preparation for the tour.
“Learning those songs was like relearning how to play drums,” Harris said, adding, “Mimicking myself is really strange.”
But how has Isis’ evolution affected the playing of their old songs?
“I’m trying to throw in a little bit of the old and a little bit of the new, so there’s elements of my new playing in the older stuff,” Harris said. “It’s been cool to mix it together.”
Another aspect that points to the intelligence of Isis’ music is the recurrence of themes and concepts in the band’s lyrics and visual presentation. The concept for their most recent record explores literary and historical figure Hassan i Sabbah, among other related ideas.
When asked to explain the themes of Isis’ music, Harris was reticent, saying, “We don’t like to talk about [lyrical themes] too much. We want people to have their own interpretations.”
He said that this was largely so that listeners can develop their own relationship and understanding of their art, something he related to the experiences of his favorite records.
Isis is the band that established “post-metal” as a viable genre. Through the past five years, bands exploring similar musical territory have exploded. Harris said that since the band’s inception, the audience and scene for Isis’ type of music has grown dramatically.
“It was a struggle to get people to even come to our shows. It seems like post-rock–or whatever you want to call it–has just become a scene,” he said.
But like any band that leads a new, original sound, there are now more than a few bands who were very “influenced” by Isis’ music.
“I never thought this band would grow to be something people looked up to or were inspired by,” Harris said. “It’s flattering.”
What do the next 10 years hold for Isis? They’ve already started writing their next album and will release limited-edition singles from In the Absence of Truth in the coming month. But beyond that, it’s hard to say.
“Hopefully, we’ll still be playing music,” Harris said. “We’re excited that 10 years later, we’re still able to do this.”
Isis will play at the Hawthorne Theatre tonight at 9 p.m. Tickets are $16.