Los Angeles ambient metal pioneers Isis have evolved consistently over the course of their five studio albums to the point where calling them "metal" seems unfairly reductive. Sure, the crushing waves of guitar still exist, but those walls of sound now act as a blank slate on which a listener can project mental pictures. Teaming with new producer Joe Baressi, the band has created a deeply hypnotic set of songs that operates almost as a seamless symphony, more often than not glittering with ethereal beauty. Every track but one runs more than seven minutes long, and the band uses the time to explore textures and movements, such as on "20 Minutes/40 Years," which changes like the stormy sea, and on "Hand of the Host," a melancholic epic that owes much to the Cure's washes of sound on DISINTEGRATION. This is heady stuff, with incalculable rewards for those willing to get lost in it.