- Record Label: Hypnotic / Cleopatra
- Release Date: Aug 13, 2002
- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
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Through it all they keep it both consistent (without being same-y) and experimental (without being disorienting).
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Interestingly enough, the group manages to pull most of it off, but not without some stops into new-age and downright silly territory.
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It's jaw-dropping, certainly, and what's more, it actually works.
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Sweepingly beauteous and mesmerizingly rhythmic, The Isness offers pleasures equally suited to explorers of dancefloors or headphones.
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FSOL fans may not be impressed. But for connoiseurs of sprawling, loony progtronica, this other-worldly masterpiece is so far out you need a telescope to see it.
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MojoA big, bold, brazen statement, epic in places, charmingly flawed in others. [Sep 2002, p.110]
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UncutWhat continually redeems this acid flashback to a more well-meaning era is its endlessly metamorphosing soundscape, its kaleidoscope washes of virtual psychedelia. [Oct 2002, p.101]
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This is a fascinating record that doesn't quite work in all places and, in others, seems to work all too well, and maybe too well for their own good.
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MixerIts simple structures create memorable and identifiable songs. [Sep 2002, p.76]
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Q MagazineIt's the songs which seal The Isness's fate. [Sep 2002, p.100]
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It's ironic that 30 years later, a record like this could make psychedelia seem as curmudgeonly as rock & roll seemed then.
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UrbOnce you're name-checking Supertramp and ELO as major influences, it's pretty much over. [Aug 2002, p.114]
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 7 out of 11
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Mixed: 2 out of 11
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Negative: 2 out of 11
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MarkPFeb 22, 2006
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MarkussXFeb 25, 2005
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SeanTFeb 9, 2004