I must admit I was expecting a wall of noise from Isis. In my experience of live, mostly instrumental bands they have generally all made an atmospheric and decipherable sound, but still an aural assault. So I was surprised to find that ‘The Beginning and the End’ wasn’t that at all. In fact, I nearly mistook it as sounding a bit flat. But it was, as I soon found out, all part of the Isis plan when the sound levels slowly rose with the tension of the song, so that when then final coda came in, it wasn’t played, it exploded. What they were doing was making sure every instrument was crystal clear so that they could build all the atmosphere up for a final, dramatic crescendo; and this was only the first song!

So the fact that the sound levels were so good, it meant that you could really pick out the essentials of Isis’s sound, or at least the one they created for this album. So this meant Turner’s vocals absolutely boomed through the p.a system; his “death” growls were absolutely terrifying complete with reverb to give it a real “surround sound” feel. Where as the drums, they were just phenomenal. Harris’s drumming is just so impressive that it is a spectacle in itself, but the fact that now we’ve got added fills and an amazing sound for it, is mind-blowing.

With all this in mind then, ‘False Light’ is just incredible. Probably the heaviest track on the record; filled to the brim with abominable riffs and violent rhythms, it’s played with such ferocity that it feels like an aural monolith that will never cease. And it continues on into ‘Carry’ which shows the set just getting better and better, like a giant snowball gradually gathering power and speed; this so far, was one massive performance.

So when it gets to ‘Weight’, perhaps the most dramatic song on the record, my only complaint so far was that the female vocals were not present in ‘The Beginning and the End’. That I could live with, they are specifically low in the mix anyway, but in ‘Weight’, they are essential. It is the frightening tension that those vocals create that makes it such a powerful song. So you can tell I was a little disappointed when they missing from ‘Weight’ too. It started brilliantly; those haunting drums gradually gaining on you as if it’s giving chase, and as the instruments are all introduced one by one, it looks as though the song may survive after all. But when it finally reached its climax, it sadly just felt like a massive part of it was missing and ended up just sounding like a needless wall of noise; it just didn’t do the song justice. In that respect, perhaps ‘Panopticon’ would have been a better idea. And as a result it seems, the rest of the set it great, but not quite at the same levels of energy that they exerted from earlier in the set.

It wasn’t until the encore that it picked up again. After a short break, they returned with no one now knowing what they were going to play. The answer, turned out to be the unstoppable ‘In Fiction’. Arguably one of their most powerful songs, it was hard to see how they could get this wrong in anyway. And of course, it’s played to perfection, and then some, a real highlight of the set being the quintessential Isis track (so far). But it was a shame (again) that it was the end of their encore. No new songs, no old material, no ‘So Did We’. Just that one song, which although everyone was thankful to see, it seemed a bit disheartening that they didn’t treat their audience to anything else.

Overall, when brilliant, it was off the scale. 11 out of 10. Phenomenal. But those standards are hard to maintain even for the best of them.

Adam Turner-Heffer