IN THE ABSENCE OF TRUTH

Writing a review for your favorate album of all time is a rather difficult task. On this album, or rather during this experience, Isis are both the heaviest and the quietest band you've ever heard and the experience is infanatley rewarding. Production quality is absolutly perfect and distinguishing each insturment throughout the album is very easy. Even so, the layering is so complex and beautiful that with each successive spin treats the listener to somthing new. I never thought I would find myself listening to such loud and harsh music but when accompanied with such beutiful quiet sections and breathtaking build-ups, this music is hard not to listen to.

On this album, Isis continue to evolve their sound, continuing thier path toward a more melodic destination. With Celestial, they retained the dirty and heavy metal sound that they had on their EPs. With Oceanic, the band was hailed as the first Post-Metal band, adding lengthy and quiet atmospheres with which the band could build upon for the ultimate explosion of sound. On Panopticon, the band expanded on this new sound with more quiet but still mostly dirty vocals, more spacey sound effects, and more melodic guitar layering. Finally, on In The Absence Of Truth, Isis reach the point of destination that they might have been looking for all along. as said by another reviewer, " ...this is exactly what this band should sound like." Yes folks, this music is that good.

Each individual appears to give it their all on this CD. -Aaron Turner's vocals are now mostly melodic but still hard to understand and his roll as a guitar player is just as important as Michael Gallagher's -Aaron Harris' drum work is now much more tribal, much like Danny Careys of Tool, using alot more toms and double bass pedal. -Michael Gallagher's soaring lead guitar parts are absolutly fantastic during the heavier parts and his ambient guitar build ups, along with Aaron Turner, provide for an awsome experience. Having been in the front row of an Isis show right next to Gallaher and Caxide was completely awsome. -Cliff Meyer's keyboard and sound effects really add alot to the melodic element of the music and he joins the two guitars on occasion for the fabled triple guitar build up. -Jeff Caxide is probably my favorate as his bass lines are amazingly inventive and his use of effects makes just about every other bass player with effects pale in comparison exept maybe Mariusz Duda of Riverside. He isn't afraid to play high up on the fret board and the mix and production is often on his side, letting his brilliance shine through in many lead parts and awsome bottom ends.

Each song on this CD is absolutly brilliantly crafted and composed. Not one single minute of this 64 minute experience gets boring or over the top. My favorates are Dulcinea, Holy Tears and Garden Of Light for their intelligent build ups and their ambient atmospheres. Each of these three songs show how quiet and brutal Isis can be in one song. -Dulcinea probably shows the biggest growth from Panopticon, with Aaron Turner actually singing in a haunting way and the drums being utilized extremely well. Words can't really do justice to this song as the buildup is seamless from a beutiful verse part to a crushing middle section and then all of the sudden all that is left is quiet cymbals and spacey guitar, leaving you to bask in their depth until the song contiues with the piano and toms really showing what they can do. The double guitar here is awsome with one doing some chords and one playing a beautiful lead. Bass effects are really used to the best of their ability and it really shows Jeff's creativity. The crunchy climax comes all too soon with some double bass pedal and heavy power chords with a higher melodic guitar. -Holy Tears starts off with violent power chords and in the background some actual piano until very suddenly the instruments quieten to let Aaron sing a verse line, only to launch back into a lound part seconds later and some growling. Once again the violence calms itself and the bass line is left alone. The effect in which he uses is awsome and the three other melodic insturments come in with the high hat and snare to really add to the build up, in my opinion the best ambient section in any piece of music. Near the end, each guitar part gets my head spinning with the depth of it. Some long notes escape Turner's mouth before the power chords kick in, followed by an awsome lead higher part and then followed by some synchopated chords and a brilliant bottom bass line and then a cool piano pitch bend bend. -Garden of Light starts out like Maritime from the Oceanic album, showing some recurring musical themes in Isis' music. The first sixth of this song is an ensemble build up and is very coherent, only to be broken up soon by power chords and some raw vocals. This dissonant part, while at first to my liking, only adds to the coherentness of the next build up part which contains more moderatly fast guitar and quick drum work. Back and forth we go until about half way, where Turner says his last words of the album. Now only the drums are left , playing a sweet beat on the toms and soon the bass and one guitar comes in. This is where the fabled guitar trio perform there absolute best. layering and building upon eachother in an infinate swirl of sound and space which is fabulously dipicted in the cover art. Soon the drums become more and more present, adding double bass pedals and some heavy cymbal work. All too quickly the guitar performs one last flourish and the band proceeds to play the outro which contains beutiful delayed guitars and big present bass line. Two final, beutiful chords sound and end my favourate album in the best possible way.

I cannot reccomend this album enough. The intelligent use of dynamics and tone from each insturment is absolutly stunning and this will never be easily dethroned as my favorate album. See them live. Buy their music. Feel the Isis experience.