I've been having a bit of a descent into Metal Hell recently - quite enjoyable it is too. There seems to be a sub-genre of heavy rock that is either called Stoner Rock or Intelligent Metal, depending on your viewpoint or pretension scale. These bands have great names: Mastodon, Converge, Jesu and Isis. The music is like darker Metallica and Mogwai with all the quiet bits removed. Last Wednesday we went to see Isis play live. Annoyingly, it was at one of London's truly worst venues, the Mean Fiddler on Charing Cross Road. Formerly a disco nightclub, the removal of the booths at the side of the dancefloor means that the centre of the room is now a raised platform, so anyone at the sides or back is denied any kind of decent view of the stage. That aside, the place doesn't appear to have been decorated since I first went there in 1987 (to a gay club night called Fruit, whose flyers were actual bananas or oranges with stickers on them, wrapped in a brown bag).
I digress. Isis were titanic. Pointless for me to even attempt to describe it. It's dense and yet melodic riffology that makes the hairs on my arms stand up and pay attention. Their lyrics are all inspired by the writings of Michel Foucault, and let's face it you certainly can't say that about Iron Maiden. And this is a picture of the singer because he's sort of cute in that former skateboarder, bearded stoner way.