keepers - 2
Isis' last album seems to keep with the theme of droning but melodic sludge guitar, and howl-scream vocals alternating with ecclesiastical chants. Opener "Hall of the Dead"**** covers several heavy metal approaches with menacing chugging giving way to skyscrapers of chords, until a keyboard breakdown concludes with:
We must leave this place
Of deathly decay
Don't look back, press on
-the song's final "and in the end the love you take is equal to the love you make" exclamation.
"Stone To Wake A Serpent"**** peaks in the desperate middle section, dissipated by a guitar's melodic wail. Most of the album is more mysterious than aggressive, until closing track "Threshold of Transformation" arrives, guitars attacking like behemoths that belie the somber tone of the lyrics, which conclude:
The boy blesses whispers into words
in the painted valleys they await rain
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