Isis’ latest release intoxicates with “revolutionary underground sound"

Very few artists within the small frame of time given to expand their creativity can create an album with intense, profound emotional relapses through the human mind. Only Isis, a band of four years, could create the destruction forces that make up their newest release, SGNL>5. With their last release Celestial taking heed on the hardcore influenced youth, this newest release kicks out the latest emotional elements with overdubs, mixing, electric everything, and a nice drummer exploding in the background.

This follow-up to “Celestial” shows a new face to music-along the lines of Radiohead, Tristeza, or even at times, Neurosis. The first track “SGNL>5 (Final Transmission)” gives a Nine Inch Nails eerie piano background, followed by the strange taunts of an undersea submarine. Somewhere inside this moment you lose yourself in destination, where humanity lies, or exactly what journey they want you to take. It’s loud, it’s freaky, and it’s fantastic. “Divine Mother (The Tower Crumbles)” gives the next story of teenage angst to the puzzle that lies within this album. This is where the screaming comes in, the feeling of losing yourself and giving up on everything-then noticing that strange light waving above you. “Beneath Below” comes into the dark side of living. No longer do the piercing screams protrude the eardrums, only now journeyed beat machines and sounds of millions of flies reaching out toward the sun. “Constructing Towers” gives a mix of the euphoria and hell, with a slice of kiss my ass on the side. That’s what in the creative world we call, “a great entertainer.” My personal favorite track, “Celestial (Signal Fills the Void)” is a melodic photosphere of beautiful hypnotic beats, giving the listener a fresh taste of the surprise that Isis has to offer to each individual.

They are not like Limp Bizkit or Britney Spears, they do not use the same tactics and beats with every song and album they produce–they change. Some people would listen to this CD and wonder why I would praise it. What I can say is it has a revolutionary underground sound that is rare in the music world today. Perhaps if there were more bands out there like Isis, we wouldn’t have so many great bands getting out of the business to play jingles for soft drink commercials. In other words, God bless the underground bands.

Holly Johnson

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