Customer Reviews

Isis: Clearing the Eye - Visual/Aural Fragments and Excerpts 2001-2005

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Goddamn they have done a good job with this DVD!

A performance video is its own beast, and not every great band has a sense of what should be included on a video like this. Too often, underground bands think someone will actually be interested in their one-angle, head-on, color-bled Handy-cam footage.

Not so here. The video quality varies a lot, but they have composed the whole package in such a way that the low-quality video looks intentional - or at least atmospheric. Some of it looks absolutely spectacular, though, and the 70 minute Oceanic-era show from Sydney is on par with anything on MTV. The sound quality is uniformly excellent and the Celestial-era material, recorded at CBGB's in NYC in 2001, actually sounds better here than it does on that record. (It helps that there is this awesome bald guy in the audience absolutely flipping out to it. He's more into it than the band. He almost makes me uncomfortable.)

This captures everything that makes ISIS so fantastic live. The audio production is impressive, the live material is different from the original versions, the band is very tight. The only thing that suffers a bit in performance are Aaron Turner's vocals, which are frequently buried in the mix. Of course, his schizophrenic voice sets a ridiculously high bar for the sound engineer, and it probably couldn't have been done better.

The music video for In Fiction doesn't do justice to the song, but it makes the best out of what must have been a pretty shoe-string budget.

The graphic design is gorgeous - both packaging and the the DVD titles are top-notch and fit the material perfectly. Best of all, there is enough other material here to fill a coffee table book: lots of pretty photography, a discography (which irritates me since they have such a penchant for releasing rare records that I can't find) and -amazingly- the lyrics (but I don't want to know them, so I haven't checked that out).

The only thing that is conspicuously absent from this record is any material from the new album. I'm not sure why, since they have been performing these songs for some time and I don't guess they will get around to releasing another DVD any time soon...

Ripping.

I think this is an awesome DVD. Capturing ISIS they way they were meant to be seen. The live performances are usually filmed from pretty good vantage points (expecially the full performance) although there may be one or two songs that show the band from just one view. As I said before the full performance on the DVD is awesome. Great shots of the band playing maybe 7 or 8 songs. The audio is also great quality. The DVD as a whole seems to be a pretty good representation of ISIS. The overall layout of the DVD and packaging are right on with what you'd expect from the band. But I give it four stars due to the lack (or mediocrity) of the extras on the DVD. Pick this up if you're an ISIS fan.

This is a classic DVD with no new material in it.So its suggested that only if you have heard the older albums should you buy this DVD.However its more of experimenting with their own songs rather than playing them originally.The twists in the songs are enjoyable and the quality does not let you down.I was a little dissapinted as there was no backstage footage or Interviews of the artistes included but I guess thats what the band is all about...

I was wating a long time for Clearing the Eye. I have been a Isis fan since the Celestial days. I was a fan Neurosis before and stumbled onto Isis via a Neurosis search one day online. This dvd is good not great. I say that because there is always going to be room for improvement. Isis did a very good job on production of the inbetween graphics and menu details. Audio in it is good not great. The dvd is a lot better than what most bands put out in my opinoun. I really enjoyed the full set of Panopticon towards the end of the dvd. If you are a Isis fan then you should enjoy the shows that they have collected and put together. Solid music dvd, I hope this helped.

This live collection is a must for any fan of ISIS. They do a great job of providing some older footage from their earlier albums and then there is the full live set where they play cuts from 'Oceanic' and 'Pantopticon.' I've seen them live recently and this DVD is a nice compliment to their music.

ISIS have successfully produced an example of how a rock DVD shold be. There aren't any flashy tricks, no stupid angles, no cheese, just footage of the band playing in a very straightforward, uncompromising way. And that's refreshing compared to so many other band DVDs.

In all honesty, a band that didn't have a strong live act couldn't pull this type of DVD off. Really, you're just getting footage of the band playing some stuff from their catalogue. No dancers, no pyro-work, no lasers or light tricks, just the band playing. It's all that's needed to make viewing this worthwhile.

If you are wanting to straight up rock your face off, I would strongly suggest you pick up this one!

What this DVD is all about is the entire live concert from Australia. It's hard to capture the live experience of ISIS with a 2D format, but this comes close. The bass vibrates the camera and the sweat drips from the brow.... This one section is over 70 minutes long and the set list is from almost all the releases, but mostly panapticon (which in my opinon is the best one anyway, including the latest).

Buy it, you won't be disspointed! The sonic quality is amazing for a live DVD.

Long time fan of the band, well, sort of. This DVD allows a unique experience to be beheld by anyone who has never seen them perform and a nice reminder for those that have seen them. The production is very well done for the most part, the CBGB songs (I think... it's been a while since I watched this last) are a bit off visual/audio, but that's relatively easy to get past. The song selection is great, the In Fiction video is .well... low budget but interesting. I do not like the way they dissected the song, I wish they had left it as is, but that's alright. They explain in the extensive liner notes that they decided to make a video somewhat on a whim, and that's a little obvious upon viewing it.

Overall, this is a great product for any Isis fan. I think it'd be a great starting point for anyone new to Isis as well, as it contains a compelation of songs on their albums and really shows what Isis is about.

Clearing the eye is a true caption of isis live. I have seen them play in cambridge mass at the middle east and the shows captured remind me of that time. the sound quality is quality. sounds as if removed directly from the sound board. The dvd quality is also very good.