review by: Roberto Martinelli

Isis is has largely left its hardcore style found on their record Celestial behind in favor of a more amorphous, free-flowing approach. The result is one that gives the music a very meditative feel. If you've heard House of Low Culture, the side project of Aaron Turner, one of Isis' members, then imagine a midway point between that and Celestial to get an idea of what to expect on this disk. (For those who don't know, House of Low Culture is a one man experimental/drone project.) And despite the fact at least two riffs from House of Low Culture have been recycled on Oceanic, the new direction works very well.

When listening to the music on Oceanic, you often wonder how Isis' hardcore screaming style will fit in, but it does. While a good deal of the disk is without vocals, the ones that are present are still very much as they have always been, with the exception of one track that features pretty and quiet female singing in some parts.

People seem to think of Isis in terms of Celestial. For me, anyway, Oceanic has far more to offer the listener with its reflective passages, light parts, and sprawling tracks. Indeed, Oceanic is aptly named. The booklet, which is all about this theme of the ocean, is also really cool: the middle pages are of a different quality paper, a little like parchment. A pretty great disk.