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Fool · Janitor

Saw Isis last night at the Bowery Ballroom. I've just recently got into this band, and normally I am not one to like prog -- if I had to put this band into a category this is probably the closest "genre" they'd approach -- but this band kinda blows me away. Moody, crunching, loud, melodic, long-ass songs. Good stuff.

I almost blew the show off last night, because I wrecked my back digging dirt jumps during the day, but managed to pull myself together with the help of a hot shower, a fistfull of advil and a couple of tasty hot dogs from this hipster-joint near my friend's place in Williamsburg. We missed the opening act by the time we got down there, some guy who does remixes of Isis songs, oddly enough, among other things. The second band, unfortunately, was These Arms Are Snakes, or We Aren't Very Good, or Our Singer Annoyed Most of the Audience, or something like that. Yeah, so, anyway ...

Isis. First of all, not at all what I expected. I thought I'd see a bunch of prog metal dorks with mullets or little round glasses and tie-dye shits with some sort of open-your-mind saying on them. Nope. Looked like your average, good ol' hardcore band. Four huge huge dudes with ink and guitars and another one behind the drum kit. They walked on and just started playing. Really, really well. I can't remember seeing a band who sounded better live than they do on they're album. People in the audience who were jabbering to each other shut up after a few minutes and just turned to watch. They ripped through thier set, no stopping to fiddle around, or make witty banter with the audience. They just played and killed it. I swear that place could have been empty and they would have played just as hard as they did. Hands down, best live band I've seen.

So there you go. Pick up their new CD Panopticon, listen to it incessantly, and check them out when they hit your town. If you dig the CD, you'll love them live.