Fresh from touring the states with Tool, Isis finally return to Dublin. Combining Shimmering post rock melodies with thundering riffs, Isis have redefined heavy rock. Their new album In The Absence of Truth is out now on Ipecac

ISIS

In The Absence of Truth

Nothing is true. Everything is permissible. - Hassan-i-Sabbah (attributed)

With a musical trajectory that spans nearly a decade, ISIS has emerged from the frozen recesses of New England to become an internationally renowned force in underground music. Critically revered as the vanguard of "art metal," the band has consistently exploded the idiomatic strictures that have traditionally defined heavy music, with each new release expanding and improving upon the innovations of its predecessor.

On the band's fourth full-length, In The Absence of Truth, the members of ISIS (vocalist/guitarist Aaron Turner, guitarist/keyboardist Clifford Meyer, bassist Jeff Caxide, drummer Aaron Harris and guitarist Mike Gallagher) have wed the post-psychedelic crush of 2000's Celestial to the extended instrumental passages and tension-escalating dynamics that have since become the band's sonic signature. Produced and recorded with the utmost clarity and fidelity by longtime ISIS co-conspirator Matt Bayles at the Bomb Shelter in downtown Los Angeles, In The Absence of Truth is a living, breathing panorama of soaring melodies, dizzying rhythmic ziggurats and seismic heaviness. Cyclical slow-motion bursts of kaleidoscopic notes ring out across orchestral guitar squalls as Meyer erects a wall of electronically-enhanced power-atmospherics and Caxide's mesmerizing sub-aquatic bass volleys spiral endlessly under the sweeping dirge and drone of the band's devastating triple-guitar ensemble. Throughout the album, Turner's vocals have assumed a decidedly cleaner, clearer quality than on previous releases, and Harris' drum work has become even more profoundly expansive and nuanced.

Conceptually, the album exists in a nebulous purgatory where elaborately constructed falsehoods pass for fact, where verity is relative to the purposes of those who invoke it, and where traditional notions of time and space are manipulated for purposes of psychic control. Harnessing influences that span nearly a thousand years' worth of literary and esoteric history, In The Absence of Truth merges the ancient with the modern in a non-linear conjuration of colluding elements.

All told, In The Absence of Truth is not only the latest zenith in ISIS' already impressive musical catalogue, but also a triumphant sonic apex unto itself.

Further Propaganda:

In addition to many high-profile live demonstrations at numerous international music festivals such as All Tomorrow's Parties (2004, curated by Mogwai) and Japan's Fuji Fest (2006), ISIS recently performed at the Museum Of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. Earlier this year, they were commissioned to play their 2002 album, Oceanic, in its entirety as part of All Tomorrow's Parties' "Don't Look Back" series, in which such indie heavyweights as the Melvins, Low and Tortoise also participated.

After three previous full-lengths (including 2004's groundbreaking Panopticon), three EPs and an Oceanic remix collection, ISIS recently released their first DVD, Clearing The Eye, and have issued four highly sought-after limited-edition live LPs. Earlier this year, the band collaborated with Scottish dream rock avatars Aerogramme for a forthcoming installment of In The Fishtank, an ongoing recording project sponsored by Dutch music distributor Konkurrent in which two musical entities are paired up and given two days of studio time. ISIS have previously collaborated (either live or in the studio) with Tim Hecker, Justin Broadrick (Godflesh, Jesu), Justin Chancellor (Tool), 27, Dälek and Lustmord.

Beyond their primary artistic focus in ISIS, the band's members also participate in many other distinguished musical endeavors, including Old Man Gloom (Turner), Red Sparowes (Meyer), House Of Low Culture (Turner), MGR (Gallagher), The Gersch (Meyer), Windmills By the Ocean (Meyer) Los Angeles Digital Noise Academy (Harris) and Drawing Voices (Turner).

The band is currently on the road with Tool, who handpicked ISIS as direct support on their national tour.