Live Review: ISUA

There’s a communal harmony strolling south down Brunswick Street on Tuesday night. Passing through the kaleidoscope of conversations and colours in the crowd and beneath the canopy of fairy lights, there’s a calm amongst all musical walks of life at BIGSOUND this year. 

The air is thick with admiration and anticipation amongst punters and peers alike for the week to come or the gig to see. But taking a hard left on Wickham Street and up the worn stairs of Tomcat, the sense of community could be found in perhaps the most unsuspecting of genres. 

The stage lights dimmer from a soft blue to a sinister saturating red while the Melbourne five-piece doom metal band ISUA take stage and soundcheck. In competition with Bring Me The Horizon blaring over the PA, drummer James Geekie beats his kick drum like it owes him money, while vocalist Mike Nolan throws sharp, short screams between mic checks like 1-2 punches. 

There’s an anticipation in the room for what’s to come and after a short distortion from the surrounding amps - they begin. Thick and foreboding drones of sludgy guitar riffs from guitarists Dharma Lovelace and Don Bunnag, throbbed across heavy chugs from bassist ‘Patto’, all paced by momentous drumming from Geekie that leave you feeling like you’re being chased through a swamp. 

ISUA’s sharp and punchy set list is a barrage of heavy gear grinding riffs over an oppressive doom haze, but with enough aggressive pulse changes to headbang any sludge zombie out of their trance.

Nolan reels and shrieks across each song, your tour guide for the set through ISUA’s melancholic and foreboding landscape. Patto provides wrathy harmonies across tracks with Nolan’s visceral screaming wrenching you down through the band room floor.

Comprising of members from DAWN, Giant, Defamer, No Haven, and Weedy Gonzales, ISUA boasts a thoroughbred of one of the most exciting burgeoning doom metal bands coming out of Melbourne. Coming off a year of playing Melbourne metal haunts like Cherry Bar, Last Chance Rock N Roll and The Bendigo Hotel, ISUA are packing band rooms across the city with good reason. 

Last month the group unveiled their debut single, with Burden Of Dreams serving as one-half of their new EP. ISUA’s hotly anticipated debut album is due to drop in October this year, produced and mixed by the talented Mike Deslandes, the sound engineer responsible for mixing across records for fellow doom contemporaries Sundr or punk heroes like Tropical Fuck Storm.

There’s an undeniable magnetism in the Melbourne doom scene through its sense of community that bands like ISUA are bringing. 

Whether it’s members of Mountain Wizard Death Cult headbanging and adding to the matinee of swirling hair near the front of stage tonight, or Geekie sporting a Religious Observance t-shirt while he pounds on the drums, there’s a growing connection and community that makes you want to be a part of the scene, or at the very least, bear witness to what’s about to come through the fog. 

This feature has been published as part of The Music Writer’s Lab initiative, developed between MusicNT and Australia Council of The Arts. For more information, visit www.themusicwriterslab.com.