Review Summary: Archaic, chaotic, and visceral: A comprehensive effort from one of post-metal's seminal acts.
I find it quite amusing introducing this band to people. After all, they share a name with a jihadist movement that has been the center of global anti-terrorist policy and corporate news agendas alike since 2011. Even the band’s Wikipedia page has a hyperlink to the ever shapeshifting organization’s Wikipedia page at the top. Even though now the non-musical ISIS calls itself ISIL, the emergence of such an organization after a similarly named post-metal band called it quits is great irony in bad, nihilistic taste. Due to the level of such a coincidence happening, a new set of ridiculous comparisons arise for independent, free-willed hipster elitist hacks like me on subjects of etymology. The band alongside the new application for their namesake are unabashedly pervasive in their existence; they share a similarity between them being that they are both a large source of influence in their "respective scenes". The metal scene as a whole has prided itself on consistently making heavier, more technical music than the perceived-as-inferior genres as present day pivots to future. Alternatively, ISIS as a terror group wish to “out-terror” all other organizations, consistently flexing an uncanny ability to *** *** up in the global community. Perhaps the most striking qualitative similarity between the two, in a sense, is the fact that neither are caught dawdling with niceties or cordiality.
Celestial as a whole is straight and to the point, as it frames the band at their most confrontational. Directness in execution has proven to be a strength for ISIS throughout their career, and even here back in 2000, it’s no different. The content on this work has a brilliant added benefit of allowing the listener to analyze intent and motivations at a very base level. Vocal performances on the album, though almost entirely incomprehensible are felt physically. This becomes even more apparent when one learns that Aaron Turner turned in his performances literally screaming down a hallway into a microphone. That being said, ISIS is the type of outfit to prefer the kinesthetic expression and implicit framings of their work to downright explicit presentation of post-metal bands prior. Of course, releases like Oceanic and Panopticon afterwards showed the bands true potential, being without a doubt the crowning achievements of a group too short lived for their own good. However, this fact still remains: Overlooking this album is egregious when forming opinions about post-metal as a whole. The intrigue of ISIS’s end product here is in how actually important it was in determining a formulaic direction of a genre that still, 16 years after its release, is adhering to the conventions presented by this album and others like it.
The band, as they’d always seem to prove time in and time out during their run, is instrumentally brilliant. Texture and atmosphere are brought to the forefront without rendering form and structure as secondary traits. A tremendous amount of patience is required in the crafting phases of such works. Riffs from all stringed instruments are layered on top of each other in such a meticulous manner that when the band descends sonically into the more fiery sections of their music, the compositions lose nothing in terms of substance. Quiet sections include the ominous typing on a computer keyboard, and the album makes its mark on a listener when ISIS decides to let loose and lash out. Abrasion is the name of the game here, meaning typically Celestial is what would be described as a grower. Two aspects that will deter a newer listener from really enjoying it are that it’s A. mastered in a way that tends to promote loudness over sonic cohesion and B. meant to be a weathering and difficult journey of a listening experience. Transitions on such a mercurial work are as jarring as they are effective. ISIS opts for the soft-loud formula of post genre acts from years past, only augmenting the peaks and the valleys for a message that is as captivating as it is robust.
Furthermore, as examples to these conclusions, songs like “Deconstructing Towers” and “Glisten” most ingenuously follow the formula, and not at a single detriment to the band. Often, music reviewers make the mistake of reviewing albums as part of the modern paradigm even when they literally aren’t (e.g. The Needle Drop’s “Loveless” review), and theoretically, perception of any album that pre-dates this de facto “current scheme of things” is affected by bias of that nature; often things that are frowned upon nowadays musically were painted as a sort of industry standard in the musical zeitgeist of yesteryear. Though the soft-loud motif is merely a masturbatory reach at artist status nowadays, listening back to this album reminds me of a time when it wasn’t clichéd to death. In keeping with terrible spit takes and other cardinal sins of risqué Venn diagram styled comparison, ISIS were a modern act that didn't suffer from lack of an identity. Much like the ever infamous sect they share nomenclature with, they established their identity clearly through their actions, setting a now often followed precedent in the process. Would it be a reach to label ISIS as a current artistic standard for a genre they no longer exist in? Case in point: Celestial is a post-metal album rivaled by few in quality even in having its minor listenability issues. Celestial carries a contextual importance for post-metal even 16 years after the fact, and this speaks volumes of those who created it.
