It has been a rough week for the metal world. On Sunday (May 16), headbangers around the world came together in mourning for Ronnie James Dio, the iconic legend who passed away at the age of 67. Dio's death resonated deeply in the metal community, with tributes coming from all angles (the most recent of which came in concert form care of both Pearl Jam and Kiss). And though the latest news doesn't involve anything as sad as a death, it does mean the end of one of the best bands on the planet.
On Tuesday (May 18), post-metal monsters Isis announced to the world that they were calling it quits. "In the interest of preserving the love we have of this band, for each other, for the music made and for all the people who have continually supported us, it is time to bring it to a close," the band announced in a statement. "We've seen too many bands push past the point of a dignified death and we all promised one another early on in the life of the band that we would do our best to ensure Isis would never fall victim to that syndrome. We've had a much longer run than we ever expected we would and accomplished a great deal more than we ever imagined possible."
The band has had one of the most unique and complicated sounds since their formation in Boston in 1997. While the roots of their specific style can be found in traditional metal, the band members brought in elements from a number of different subgenres (prog, noise, sludge and black metal) as well as elements of classical music and Philip Glass-esque post-modernism. Rather than pound out savage riffs, Isis was happy to explore the nuances of dark sounds and build around themes (not unlike their contemporaries and occasional collaborators in Tool). To listen to their discography is to trace the evolution and advancement of metal over the past decade, and their 2009 opus Wavering Radiant is one of the best musical artifacts of the past decade.
The band will finish up all the shows slated for what will become their final tour (including a stop at Bonnaroo) and will play their final show on June 23 in Montreal (the same city where they had their first show way back in '97). They have promised a final EP, and though the metal world is losing a pack of visionaries, their music will live on. Wavering Radiant really needs to be absorbed as a whole, but the epic "20 Minutes/ 40 Years" is a good place to start.
Six cycles and three years after Nigel Barker nicknamed me "Tim" (like, I get it — he thinks I'm too gay),