CD Reviews

Isis | Temporal

Ipecac (2012)

By REYAN ALI | November 12, 2012

3.0 Stars

Steeples topple, glaciers melt, satellites crash, entire systems fail. Humanity is haplessly, fantastically screwed. Such implied disasters were always all in a song's work for Isis, the formerly Boston-based five-piece who made widescreen sludge/experimental metal for 13 years before dissolving in 2010. Temporal is an assortment of rarities culled from Isis' entire career, and it's a suitably bulky set in both length (almost two hours) and aural weight. The band use familiar tools to strike the proper targets — burly, pressurized instrumentation scrapes and scolds through peaks and valleys, and Aaron Turner's scorched-throat vocals ring loud and righteous — while making departures like a fearsome cover of Black Sabbath's "Hand of Doom" or a twangy acoustic take on "20 Minutes/40 Years." All this output is too much to process in one sitting, and skipping around and sifting through tracks does little harm, but Temporal as a whole is evenly mastered and gratifyingly titanic. If this document is the last we hear from Isis, may their graceful monuments and equally graceful wreckage be forever remembered.

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Topics: CD Reviews , Boston, review, metal, More

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