Tree of Sores

Tree of Sores rightfully take their place amid the sea of awesome bands of almost every ilk spewing out of Leeds at the moment (See Eagulls, Antares, Slowcoaches and Humanfly for an interesting cross-section). The order of the day is pounding, atmospheric walls of sound that owe a lot to Times of Grace/Through Silver in Blood-era Neurosis with suitably grim male and female vocals. The overall atmosphere is most certainly dark and rarely seems contrived, the possible exception being the fourth track From Within. The brooding vibe conjured up by Tree of Sores pays off and the band have shaped for themselves a distinctive sound despite obvious influences. Closing track Silent Scream transcends it's slightly cheesy title and provides a satisfying end to a well-rounded release.

If Tree of Sores worked on how they could better incorporate their supposed crust influence and introduce more varied and unpredictable tempos then they would stand out as something really special. As it is, their self-titled EP (out on Witch Hunter Records on February 21st) makes for a really entertaining listen and shows some real signs of potential and ability. It's definitely worth purchasing the release when it's out and I look forward to catching them live sometime soon

Witch Hunter Records

7

ISIS

Holy Tears

To my knowledge this is the first single released by ISIS in their 11 year long career so I was somewhat excited when I heard news of it but a question that came into my head after the immediate excitement was "why?". I appreciate that it may have been used as a way to release the video for "Holy Tears" in a formal way but it still seems like an unnecessary excursion for ISIS. Anyway, out of curiosity I bought the single so onto the content.

The musical element of the CD is fairly weak, it contains the album version of "Holy Tears", the Melvins/Lustmord remix of "Not in Rivers, But in Drops" and a live version of Holy Tears featuring Justin Chancellor from Tool on bass. The remix of "Not in Rivers, But in Drops" is fairly boring and is lacking the emotion of the original track; in my opinion it's not even worth the 5 and a half minutes I spent listening to it. This CD is very nearly saved from being a flop by the live version of Holy Tears but still it isn't quite good enough to counteract the dirge of the previous track. It's at this point that I watched the video for "Holy Tears" and I really didn't know what to think. I loved the video up until the final sequence which I found repulsive; it depicts a man's face coming into contact with a pavement after jumping off a sky-scraper, in slow motion. I fail to see the appeal of this and couldn't watch the video at points.



Even though I'm a big ISIS fan I fail to see the point of this CD single and if the single for "Not in Rivers, But in Drops" is released then I hope it is slightly better and more innovative than this. [5]