Isis - In the Absence of Truth (Ipecac)

by Ari Abramowitz
5 November 2006

Think about this sequence of titles: from Celestial to Oceanic to Panopticon to In the Absence of Truth. That’s a descending sequence starting at the cosmic level, moving to the Earthbound level, to the manmade, to the metaphysical. Aaron Turner, ISIS’ vocalist and guitarist laughs and says, “It just happened that way.” But does anything “just happen that way?” Maybe some things do, but I don’t think Isis’ development is one of them.

Remember the diagrams in science textbooks that would show the gradual evolution of the horse from the earliest members of the equus family to the modern horse, with each stage being a clear and gradual development on the stage that preceded it? Isis’ development has featured a simililarly deliberate and gradual evolutionary process. While the question of whether evolution has been for the better or worse is still open for discussion, it is not hyperbolic to acknowledge Isis as one of the most influencial “heavy music” bands of this decade. Before Isis, the threads of their approach were manifest in bands such as NEUROSIS, GODFLESH and MOGWAI.

After Isis, the residual echoes of their sound reverberate in at least three dozen bands of respectable quality or better. Yet Isis’ place in the heavy music cosmology is largely grounds for doubt, in Turner’s eyes. “Are we doing something good?” “Are we doing it for the right reasons?” Another interesting question might be how deep were Isis’ conceptual breakthrough if so many bands were able to reproduce many elements of the core sound. This self-doubt and uncertainty, this absence of truth in their own hearts, is largely the defining spirit of the current album, sensibly if unfortunately titled, In the Absence of Truth.

Going back a bit, freshly-forged, Celestial, from 2001, still bore some of the smoldering heat of the residual Earth and Fire employed in the crucible of their mentors, Neurosis. Isis’ re-interpretation of post-hard-core as trance-like music and its catharsis as coming through repetition and tension, rather than through hyper-frenetic spazz-out was revelatory, even if the juxtapositions of corporeal crunch and open-ended atmospheres were, at times, awkward and underdeveloped (“half-baked,” Turner says).

Oceanic was all that its name suggested and more: ebb and flow, seamless, organic, gigantic. Guitars would chime as well as chug and it sounded as though there were a hundred of them, creating a dense but not leaden space that maintained its rhythmic pulse even in the more atmospheric sections. It had power to push, immerse, or obliterate or beauty. It balanced the delicate and the powerful, the harmonic grace and the rhythmic drive, the structured and open-ended, one and the same…..definitive.

Panopticon, as its name suggested, took us out of nature. Not necessarily out of the Garden, per se, since the cosmos and oceans contain much that can hurt us, but the system of surveillance (even if only in title) it introduced did put us—and probably the band, too—in the anti-Eden of self-awareness. And the album reflected that.

It’s a crisper and brighter sounding album than earlier releases, but the compositions lost a little of the confidence that presumably came from having the forces of nature marshalled throughout them. There’s more space in the songs, but not necessarily more of the propulsion necessary to navigate through that space or to give it effective shape. When the moments of solidity did hit, they often came abruptly, not as much from the rhythms of the planets and tectonic plates as from the frustrated desire to break out of the uncertainty that has started to cast its shadow over the music.

In the Absence of Truth implies that the uncertainty of Panopticon has only become more pervasive. When I asked Aaron about this, he acknowledged the possibility of a nihilistic or hedonistic interpretation to the title, but maintained that the absence of truth wasn’t a statement of relativistic directionlessness as much as it was an assertion of liberation.

The gist being that, if you can let go of your all-or-nothing grib on your conception of “the truth,” you will have more freedom and flexibility to be able to listen to other visions of the truth and, hopefully, be able to better communicate with others in the process. In the spirit of our own communication, we had to agree that this approach only works when those with other visions of the truth have the same, flexible approach that Aaron is advocating. While it seemed that his current philosophy is catalyzed at least as much by the words and deeds of rulers far more autocractic than our own, it was curious to see that the one lyrical line printed within the CD is “Nothing is true; everything is permitted,” attributed to Hassan-i Sabbah, the 11th-12th Century Persian cult leader not known for his flexibility or liberality with those whose beliefs of truth differed from his own.

It’s not surprising that a similar ambivalence carries throughout much of the album. Reflecting that ambivalence, Absence shows a band who wants to embrace open-ended liberation but also understands the infinite dead ends that philosophy can lead to. Uncertainty ends up filling the void.

The opening track, “Wrists of Kings,” for example, starts with a semi-tribal, tom-heavy rhythm, with chiming guitar notes layered on top and is slowly built into a swell. So far, so good (if a bit familiar for Isis). Just as the piece builds towards a peak, it suddenly cuts off and cuts into a slightly awkward, stutter-step rhythm and a few verses of vocals, sounding closer to atmospheric indie rock than Isis has on any earlier recordings. A few more perfunctory verses follow until the guitars break into chugs and the vocals start growling.

Only at this point does the piece hit its stride, with guitars surging—one low, one high—pulse pumping, double bass kicking it another level up and, just as quickly as it jumped up in gears, it’s over. It’s a perfectly decent track and it’s pretty much paint-by-numbers Isis. Only this time around it feels that most of the song is dedicated to the pleasant but unremarkable verses, with the raging, trademark catharsis given a short, 30-second straw, played like a relative afterthought. It’s kind of like one of a million solid 70s rock tracks that fades out right before the awesome jam is about to kick in.

“Not in Rivers, But in Drops” is interesting and unusual for Isis in that it starts out sounding like something out of mid-80s England, perhaps the CHAMELEONS or ECHO & THE BUNNYMEN, with the streams of moody, reverby guitars. As with the first track, it builds to a mini-climax before cutting off into something different. The band seems to be saying, “We like that 80s alternative vibe, but it’s not really what we wanna do with the song, so we’re gonna do something totally different than the opening.”

And they meander with several themes before something really sticks and they finally hit their stride around five minutes into the piece. “Dulcinea” works pretty well by keeping the structure simple. A seven minute track, roughly split into two halves, each with their own main theme that carries through its half, each with its big crescendo, one based on vocals, one based on guitar. This leads to a satisfying track that would have been immortal if the riffs were a notch better. “Over Root and Thorn” starts out like a ROBERT FRIPP and BRIAN ENO piece and then drifts aimlessly for four minutes before the atmospheric indie rock verses come in…only to be knocked out of nowhere by a round of massive guitars and barked vocals. It’s jarring and doesn’t work in the inverse way that the major key, “catchy” choruses didn’t work next to SLIPKNOT’s grinding verses: lack of organic connection. The piece then drifts out, but stalls until a crunchier guitar comes in to escort the piece off the screen.

Definite uncertainty. “Holy Tears” starts off as the closest thing Isis has come to a traditionally structured song. What holds it together is the middle section solo, which sounds like it is being played on a Rhodes electric piano, but may just as easily be a guitar. What could have been aimless is actually engaging thanks to an intriguing central theme, maybe reminiscent of some of PINBACK’s more intricate work, that gains in complexity as it proceeds, rather than treading water till it’s rescued by a landfill of blindsiding guitar drop. The vocals come back in slowly, as do the heavy guitars, allowing time and space for the song’s energy to gather and swell organically. This leads to a resolution more believable and satisfying than a quick acceleration would have provided. My only regret is that it ends kind of suddenly, rather than letting us ride longer on the large wave.

This kind of purposeful patience is what maximizes the impact of Isis’ writing style. It’s what they do when they’re at their best. And it finally bears fruit on Absence’s final track, “Garden of Light.” At 9:17, it’s the longest track on the album yet feels like it could be the shortest as it never loses its sense of progression, pulse and propulsion, regardless of whether the song is in verse or riff, in a dense mode or a spacious one. As with many Isis songs, around the half-way mark, the band drops off and builds towards an instrumental culmination from the drums up. Here, the drums groove expertly, maintaining momentum, open and focused—without drifting. This solid pulse allows the guitars to take their time layering first their notes, then their lines, and finally their riffs, patiently and thoughtfully—without noodling. Both together allow the mass and volume to gather and build so that the entire band can expand together, achieving an ensemble climax far more powerful than blind groping or sudden slamming would produce. It’s almost as if, while searching around in the absence of truth, Isis were finally able to find thruth’s presence, in the end. And, even if they didn’t actually find it, for nine minutes, they were at least capable of forging their own.

Filed under post-rock hard rock