Album Details

• Artist: Isis
• EP:
Live I
• Label: Ipecac
• Year of Release: 2011
• ME Rating:
• Reviewed by: trismus on 2011-05-11

In 2003, while haters of music everywhere were listening to 50 Cent and 3 Doors Down, Isis were stomping their way from San Francisco to Stockholm.  The tour was in support of the band’s latest release Oceanic, an album that many fans of Isis consider to be the flashpoint of the band’s sound and future success.  Some might argue that signing to Neurot Recordings in 2000 for Celestial and SGNL>05 was when the band began to enjoy recognition on a larger scale and this I cannot argue.  Not only was the signing to Neurot big for the band but opening up for Cave In and Neurosis provided a spotlight reserved for a chosen, deserving few. The slot came with built in credibility simply for the discerning tastes of their headliners.  All of that said, I would still maintain that the band’s vision and direction was first achieved with Oceanic.  The symphonic balance was realized then and an aural equilibrium between rage and harmony was never disturbed from thereon. 

Isis Live I (out May 31^st) is the first of five upcoming live albums that chronicle the band from 2003 to 2006.  Locations range from The Filmore in San Francisco (the location for this release) to London, Albuquerque, Boston, Los Angeles, New York, Stockholm, and Philadelphia.  Live I and II will provide mostly songs from Oceanic.  Live III, IV, and V however start focusing more on Panopticon material as that album was released a mere two years after Oceanic. 

So what can you expect from Live I?  I would say, in all fairness, what you would imagine.  First of all, it’s a live recording so clarity is immediately degraded, as one should expect.  Secondly, we’re not talking about a band that, at the time, had the financial means to lug the best gear or record with the finest quality of equipment.  It was a show taped in a venue that suffered its own harmonic deficiencies and acoustic challenges.  It’s a fuzzy archive of a titan’s waking steps. 

And it’s awesome. 

Only four songs long, my only lingering desire is for more material.  Though perhaps providing us with a fourteen minute long version of “Weight” and three of Oceanic’s best tracks is supposed to simply whet the appetite for the forthcoming releases.  Whether this was the intention of Live I or not, it succeeds in doing just that.

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