Show Isis returns to Salt Lake and Club Sound Eric Smith th Contributing Writer Standing in what I thought was the line for Isis on the night of March 30 I couldn't help wonder how the band had acquired so many fans Their latest album release or any of them for wasn't that matter wasn't exactly mainstream At pm p.m. there were more than one hundred people waiting for the show that wasn't scheduled to start until 6 pm p.m. As the line grew something happened to tomake tomake tomake make the long I line ne of people all make sense An employee came out and let people into The Early November show at Club Sound the venue adjacent to In the Venue The lines for the shows were split into two and the theline theline theline line for Isis now conta contained ned only 11 II people a bit more like I had expected But even with only 11 II fans to start the show filled out as the night went on The show opened with more than an hour later than the scheduled start time But the band wasted no time once on stage and quickly reached an eardrum-bursting eardrum volume The screamed vocals and giant guitar riffs of the band seemed to impress most show attendees Its It's not hard to hear the influence from frontman Caleb Scofield's previous projects Cave In and Old Man Gloom seems to walk a alin aline lin line between the space rock of Cave In and the doomy ambient sound of Old Man Gloom Though the band has only released one album Harmonic Tremors the band has some very real potential Just before the next band Jesu played the bands band's bassist Diarmuid Dalton came out on ail stage to do his sound check The sound that came out of his amp is well described by the words holy crap It was the meanest and heaviest- heaviest sounding bass I had ever heard and it only hinted at was to come when the entire band finally landed on stage The almost uplifting chiming keyboards of the song Silver were the first thing the crowd heard from the band that night The sound seemed almost contradictory to the the heavy and slow guitar that joined the song seconds later Then singer Justin Broadrick joined in with his melancholy monotone vocals Combined with throbbing bass and steady drums the like sound lulled the audience Though Jesu is not known for its loud your in-your-face vocals the vocals during the show were nearly impossible ib Ie to hear especially if audience members weren't familiar with the lyrics The problem could easily have been fixed by turning up the microphone a bit but despite the minor vocals problem Jesu was still everything the audience expected They wee loud and they were heavy As Isis took the stage ri n fans any fans in inthe the the crowd crowd let them know who they were to see The band opened with Wrist of Kings a track on their latest album i f O p-M p S M In the Absence of Truth The tom fueled tribal beat instantly let any fan know what song it was The beat continued by itself for almost a minute before the tension-filled tension guitars joined in At this point the song sounded downright nefarious in its own subtle Isis kind of way The song continued to build evening out just before the vocals of frontman Aaron Turner came into the song I doubt anyone has ever criticized Isis for being impatient and Vrist Wrist of Kings is only proof that they are in fact a very patient band The Isis set list predominately consisted of songs from the album In Inthe Inthe Inthe the Absence of Truth but the band performed two songs from and the song False Light from Oceanic It was after this song probably the bands band's hardest hitter of the night that Aaron Turner told tolda a rambunctious crowd to take it easy The show ended with Isis' Isis song In Fiction The song was once again a great example of the bands band's ability to build tension It start started cd out with a simple drum beat backed by what I can only describe as an like Isis-like bass line A creepy note four-note guitar piece played over the top of the bass and drums while the song built and built The song exploded into a power chord riff just before going quiet again The band played with this silence for a while more than once threatening to explode again but pulling back each time Finally exploding into a heavily distorted section the band ended the song and their set for the night The bands were unable to play for as long as the audience would have l liked ked because of the late start Isis only played a seven- seven song set but audience cheers at the end of the show unmistakably let the band know the short show was a hit The second showing of Isis in Utah less than six months after its debut was definitely just as worth it as the first I f JC f If I I IE i Iii C f S. S i o oI s sS sI I A to t. t o f I S i if 1 f T r Photos by bV Eric Smith Guitarist Aaron Turner bottom and drummer Aaron Harris along with the rest of Isis returned to |