| CD REVIEW Isor |
 |
|
Band : Isor Gee, has it really been 4 ½ years since the release of Isor's debut full-length Post Mortem Peep Show? Yeah...well, that means the review for that album is no longer available on our website. But wait...you can still find a copy of it on the Copro website (for all you interested, surf to coprorecords.co.uk, click on "Releases" on the left side of the page, scroll to the new Isor album and click on the "Visit ISOR's Artist Profile" link, now scroll down the page to the "Artist Reviews" section), and the band also put it in the news section of their own website isor.net. 4 ½ years seems like a long time, but the band has hardly been inactive. After the release of their Dave Chang produced album, they put in over 110 shows through several tours and separate gigs, not in the least thanks to several very, véry positive reactions from the media worldwide! Also, videos for "Coping With Your Ginger Secret" (the song was also used on the soundtrack for cult horror movie Infestation)and "We Are The People That Watch You Shower") were given a truly heavy rotation on the music tv channels (most notably on UK's Skuzz TV and Australia's Rage tv show on the ABC television channel). And then of course drummer/ backing singer Nick Hemingway started a career as recording engineer/ producer himself...for Copro! So, it's no surprise that this time around Nick did all recording, mixing, production, and even mastering himself. A very good decision, because nobody knows better what his music should sound like than the artist himself, and when you understand what it takes to actually gét what you want...? If there's one thing anyone will agree on, it's that the sound on the new Isor album is simply explosive! Much better than what Chang did on the debut, by far! Of course, sóme of that certainly has to do with the new material and the evolution the band has gone through in the last years. You see, there were a lot more calm passages on Post Mortem which frequently included the use of acoustic guitar, and calmer vocals. For the new album, the duo has clearly chosen for a more brutal approach overall, but are still blending their Math Metal with diverse changes in style, tempo, and time signature. There's still calmer passages as well, but for the most part the former acoustics have been exchanged with somewhat freaky melodic atmospherics on the electric guitar. Two tracks jump out from the typification which one would be able to give all 9 other tracks on the album, being the short album closing acoustic guitar instrumental, and the song"The Great Paperboy Strike", which not only has acoustic guitar played both in the intro and during the song, bot also contains a passage during which one of the two guys (oh, did I forget to mention you thus far, my dear lead singer and guitarist Dave Merricks?) brings some truly melodic and clean bit of singing (oh well, and then Dave also plays a short bit of hardly distorted electric guitar during "Making Mr. Wood Feel Good")! Song titles, which already showed a touch of humour on the first album, are somewhat more outspoken this time around even if the lyrics themselves retain a degree of crypticism. I'm therefore not sure what to think about a song titled "Dykes Make My Sperm Strike", for instance. Or how about "Never Look A Gift Whore In The Mouth"? As with the first official full-length, people will have some trouble believing there's only two guys in this band, but as far as I can make out, the boys have kept everything as honest as possible, and if indeed there's been overdubs, it must've only been to correct some small mistakes and not to put in some extra layer of guitar or drums! The truth is, these two guys have a perfect understanding of each other, and their prificiency on either the guitar or drums is not to be underrated! Check it (and the difference in sound between the two albums) out for yourselves by surfing either to myspace.com/isor or isor.net (the latter gives you the two aforementioned videos as well as two songs off each album). Great album, and although I'm not catapulting it into my year-lists (due to the simple fact that even after giving it some 10 or more listening sessions, I'm still overwhelmed by the whole of it...which stops me short in my efforts to actually start dissecting and analysing the music), I'm already certain that I will listen to it again and again in the future, each time feeling that same bewilderment about the quality offered! 96/100 Tony. |