Webster Hall
Friday, June 18
Farewell tours are weird, the celebratory nature of live rock being counteracted by the knowledge that this will never happen again; the listener can frequently walk away feeling weirdly hollow, as though the experience was somehow lessened by its unrepeatability. After 13 years and five albums (plus several EPs, a half-dozen or so live discs, a DVD, and dozens of austere, dignified T-shirts), the revered post-metal quintet Isis are calling it quits; their current U.S. tour is their final run of live dates. Their Friday night show at Webster Hall, which was followed by a Music Hall of Williamsburg gig Saturday night, was a concise summary of their artistic achievement—in effect, a final report on the work of the last decade-plus.
They launched the set with "Threshold of Transformation," the final track from 2009's Wavering Radiant
. The drums were almost absurdly reverb-ed; live performance seems to bring out their prog-rock side, without the songs ever actually stretching. They sounded like Pink Floyd. Even the mammoth riff of "Collapse and Crush" (from their first album, 2000's Godflesh-besotted Celestial
), couldn't break the numbed, drifting feel. If it wasn't for vocalist Aaron Turner's occasional roars, the seven-song set, which touched on their entire discography (two tracks each from Wavering Radiant and 2004's Panopticon
, one each from Celestial, 2002's Oceanic
, and 2006's In the Absence of Truth
), would have been pure Gothic post-punk. The dominant bandmember wasn't Turner, but bassist Jeff Caxide, who seemed intent on turning every song into a cover of The Cure's "Fascination Street."It's possible to have two drummers and still be rhythmically flaccid; the Grateful Dead managed it for decades. Not the Melvins, who've had both Dale Crover and Coady Willis behind side-by-side kits since 2006. Their set, which began and ended with taped music (the theme from Blazing Saddles and "Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah," respectively), was one long, floor-shaking drum solo, with guitarist/vocalist Buzz Osborne (wearing what looked like an ankle-length robe with a turtleneck) and bassist Jared Warren (gladiator tunic and cape) throwing riffs and howls into the thunder here and there. Their set began with a death-march cover of Flipper's antiwar anthem "Sacrifice," then continued through an hour or so of mostly songs from their last three albums, all of which feature the four-piece/two-drummer lineup. Among the highlights were "The Water Glass," a military-cadence chant wedded to a huge, Led Zeppelin-esque riff, and "Pig House," which featured a surf-guitar break—both came from the brand-new The Bride Screamed Murder
.The first band of the night was Bay Area power trio Totimoshi, who played on the Melvins' equipment and served as their roadies. Guitarist/singer Tony Laureano has a rough, clenched voice like a Latino Scott "Wino" Weinrich, with a guitar tone that's somewhere between Helmet and Hendrix. He and bassist Meg Castellanos create a loose, bluesy groove, with drummer Chris Fugitt hammering the floor into place beneath them. Two of their six songs were instrumentals; the rest could easily have been, too, because the riff and the groove were what it was all about.
[From the Village Voice.]
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