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Borknagar - Empiricism

11 hours ago, markm said:

Been holed up  in my ride most of this week to Aaron Turner 's collectives art wank post sludge ib extended repeat

Old Man Gloom / Ape of God (2914) -my entry into OMG-This one (actually two albums) didn't click when it came out -the noise parts were just annoying and self-indulgent. "get to the point"! Play some metal and spare me the crackling feedback. They still are annoying to some extent, but the noise parts don't annoy me so much. It's aged well for me

Old Man Doom/Light of Meaning (2020)

Old Man Gloom-Darkness of Being (2020) -one of the more interesting metal/post hardcore adjacent albums for me last year

Sumac/May You Be Held-this album is the shit-nearly formless, shape-shifting and unknowable but it rules

Zeppelin/IV-This one isn't too bad, either

This reminds me to give Old Man Gloom another chance. Isis is one of my favorite bands, but I haven't been able to warm up to anything that any of the members did afterwards.

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1 hour ago, FatherAlabaster said:

Borknagar - Empiricism

This reminds me to give Old Man Gloom another chance. Isis is one of my favorite bands, but I haven't been able to warm up to anything that any of the members did afterwards.

This.

OMG are crushing live, because it's the heaviest side of Isis and can stay focused in a coherent set list where they play the hits. But, man, the albums just wander all over the place. Same with Sumac.

The genius of Isis was having guys in the band that had strong enough personalities and their own writing chops to reign in Aaron Turner. Left to his own devices (and apparently in OMG too) he just can't keep songs focused enough to produce a great album all the way through.

On the other hand Palms, which is all of Isis excluding Aaron, + Chino Moreno on vocals, is too soft. The songs are constructed more better than OMG or Sumac, but they lack the Aggressive Turner OverdriveTM.

Isis was pure synergy. 

True story: back in 2002 or so I went to see Cult of Luna open for Isis on the Oceanic tour. It's beyond me why now but, while I had heard Oceanic, I preferred CUL up until that point.

For whatever reason CUL didn't really pull it off that night. But holy shit, seeing Isis was a revelation. They even leapfrogged Neurosis in my book. Although, these days Neurosis still remain the band to beat in the post metal space. 

 

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1 hour ago, JonoBlade said:

This.

OMG are crushing live, because it's the heaviest side of Isis and can stay focused in a coherent set list where they play the hits. But, man, the albums just wander all over the place. Same with Sumac.

The genius of Isis was having guys in the band that had strong enough personalities and their own writing chops to reign in Aaron Turner. Left to his own devices (and apparently in OMG too) he just can't keep songs focused enough to produce a great album all the way through.

On the other hand Palms, which is all of Isis excluding Aaron, + Chino Moreno on vocals, is too soft. The songs are constructed more better than OMG or Sumac, but they lack the Aggressive Turner OverdriveTM.

Isis was pure synergy. 

True story: back in 2002 or so I went to see Cult of Luna open for Isis on the Oceanic tour. It's beyond me why now but, while I had heard Oceanic, I preferred CUL up until that point.

For whatever reason CUL didn't really pull it off that night. But holy shit, seeing Isis was a revelation. They even leapfrogged Neurosis in my book. Although, these days Neurosis still remain the band to beat in the post metal space. 

 

Isis really was a goddamn force of nature live. They put on an excellent show. I miss them a lot. I had enjoyed their earlier stuff but Oceanic hit me like a ton of bricks when it came out - right place at the right time for me, I guess - and it remains my favorite of theirs.

And yeah, all of my various experiences and opinions listening to Palms, Sumac, and Old Man Gloom line up with yours. I am looking forward to giving them another shot... except for Palms, I think I tried hard enough with that project. There have been a lot of times where I've come back to something with a fresh perspective and really had it click, so I guess I'm holding out hope that might happen here.

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2 hours ago, FatherAlabaster said:

Isis really was a goddamn force of nature live. They put on an excellent show. I miss them a lot. I had enjoyed their earlier stuff but Oceanic hit me like a ton of bricks when it came out - right place at the right time for me, I guess - and it remains my favorite of theirs.

And yeah, all of my various experiences and opinions listening to Palms, Sumac, and Old Man Gloom line up with yours. I am looking forward to giving them another shot... except for Palms, I think I tried hard enough with that project. There have been a lot of times where I've come back to something with a fresh perspective and really had it click, so I guess I'm holding out hope that might happen here.

Plams really suffered from Chinos vocals, the man is more limited than Tobias Forge, but at least Forge knows how to play to his strengths. You can say a lot about Deftones but saying Chino is a brilliant vocalist is not one of them.

I've never seen Isis live, but I've never walked away from a Cult of Luna concert dissapointed. Even in their early days they spent the extra cash to have a dedicated light guy and it showed.

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11 hours ago, Sheol said:

I've never seen Isis live, but I've never walked away from a Cult of Luna concert dissapointed. Even in their early days they spent the extra cash to have a dedicated light guy and it showed.

On that fateful night in 2002 it wasn't Cult of Luna's fault. They suffered from opening band syndrome where they all, including drums, were pushed to the front of stage. I have plenty of respect for those guys and they've stood the test of time.

Last gig of theirs I saw was great. 

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3 hours ago, JonoBlade said:

On that fateful night in 2002 it wasn't Cult of Luna's fault. They suffered from opening band syndrome where they all, including drums, were pushed to the front of stage. I have plenty of respect for those guys and they've stood the test of time.

Last gig of theirs I saw was great. 

Considering they're like 40 ppl on stage that must've been crowded 😂

Fun fact, last gig before Covid was CoL in Umeå. T'was massive.

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17 hours ago, FatherAlabaster said:

Isis really was a goddamn force of nature live. They put on an excellent show. I miss them a lot. I had enjoyed their earlier stuff but Oceanic hit me like a ton of bricks when it came out - right place at the right time for me, I guess - and it remains my favorite of theirs.

And yeah, all of my various experiences and opinions listening to Palms, Sumac, and Old Man Gloom line up with yours. I am looking forward to giving them another shot... except for Palms, I think I tried hard enough with that project. There have been a lot of times where I've come back to something with a fresh perspective and really had it click, so I guess I'm holding out hope that might happen here.

I have to credit albums like Oceanic, Panopticon, Through Silver and Blood, Salvation and The Beyond for renewing my interest in heavy music in the early aughts.

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