ISIS & TORCHE @ 9:30 Club, Washington, DC 3/11/07 Show Review by Alex Harisiadis
Are the times changing? Is heavy music no longer fodder for VH1 specials but actually a legitimately appreciated form of rock music? When that bastion of all that is hip, Pitchfork Media, starts to devote more space to independent metal and hardcore artists, you know something is up. This trend extended to the 9:30 Club Sunday evening when ISIS paid the District a visit along with Florida's thunder-pop monsters TORCHE and LA's INTRONAUT, who were filling in for a visa-delayed JESU.
Florida's TORCHE, who have risen from the ashes of beloved No Idea act FLOOR, have been making a ton of waves with their bombastic Foo Fighters-meets-stoner metal sound. After INTRONAUT wrapped up their strong set, which I only caught the tail end of, but was sufficiently impressed by, TORCHE took to the stage amidst a tidal wave of detuned guitars and booming drums. From there they launched into the two newest songs, "In Return" and "Rule The Beast," from their upcoming Robotic Empire EP. Unlike a fair amount of TORCHE's material from their debut self-titled LP, these new songs from the EP are more uptempo, which combined with the sonic blast from singer/guitarist Steve Brooks Orange full-stack, provided a volatile catalyst for mass headbanging. The set meandered through mid- to uptempo material, but the decibel level remained bone-crushingly loud, with Brooks' Dave Grohl-esque croon surfacing from time to time. Finally, in true rockstar fashion, TORCHE finished their set amidst a haze of feedback and cleared the stage for ISIS.
ISIS' profile has been rising for quite some time now, and they have finally started to garner praise from major media outlets (the Washington Post's Express ran a piece on them!) for their "thinking man's metal." With the release of the Middle Eastern philosophy-drenched In The Absence of Truth, the flirtation with the mainstream has continued unabated, and the band's extremely powerful and layered live show Sunday evening proved this new level of attention is completely warranted.
The band primarily drew from In The Absence of Truth, opening their set with the first two tracks from that album, "Wrists of Kings" and "Not In Rivers, But In Drops," before veering off into Oceanic territory and then returning to the current album. While last year's set at the Black Cat felt "all-encompassing" in terms of overall sound, the 9:30's fantastic sound system brought out nuances that might have been lost on a lesser sound system. The occasional shimmer of a clean-channel guitar, the spare keyboard melody or an unusual drum beat was all there for the audience member to take in.
Eventually, ISIS moved away from In The Absence... and closed out their set with an encore performance of "In Fiction" from 2004's stellar Panopticon. Though the entire performance could once again be characterized as "all business," the band seemed more charismatic than I recalled from last year's performance, particularly frontman Aaron Turner, who had an authoritative air of confidence when stepping up to the microphone. Perhaps this new level of confidence arises from the fact that ISIS can seemingly do no wrong. They have a consistently top-notch recorded output, they put on an uparalleled live show, and they have even conquered the arena crowds as direct support for TOOL. Whatever the case, ISIS are cementing themselves as a premiere force in American music and, one day, they may be remembered as a seminal band of the early 21st century.
