Isis

ISIS
Panopticon
(Ipecac)

It's not often suggested that metal bands have "entered their prime" once they begin to prominently employ accordions, or even keyboards filtered through an accordion patch. Boston's Isis are a big-time exception, an unpretentious art-rock behemoth who have refined and beautified their lumbering, mallet-hurling approach on each consecutive album without sacrificing a sliver of their inherent, primal power. That aforementioned "accordion" drones dreamily through both channels on the bridge of Panopticon's seven-and-a-half-minute opener, "So Did We," first as atmospheric complement to a series of brittle, sad guitar arpeggios, then as shrieking reply to the coda's hailstorm of detuned doom riffs. The quintet first began tinkering with this ambient/aggro dynamic on 2002's Oceanic (prior albums The Red Sea and Celestial were more content simply nodding to Neurosis' T. Rex stomp), but even that gorgeous effort is amateur hour compared to Panopticon. This is what Tool's Lateralus should have been—a brutalizing, insightful art-metal masterpiece that mines its depth from compositional ebbs and flows, not end-of-days lyrical bombast. You get the best of both worlds in the towering, deceptively simple, four-chord instrumental "Altered Course" (featuring Tool bassist Justin Chancellor), which relies on subtle fluctuations of volume and syncopation for its narrative—which isn't to say notoriously guttural architect Aaron Turner is lacking as a storyteller. By the way, a panopticon is a prison developed by 18th-century London utilitarian Jeremy Bentham, in which inmates would at all times be observed and scrutinized by hidden authorities. The concept obviously doubles as a metaphor for Patriot Act–era America, one of countless inspired nuances that make this album one of the year's finest. ANDREW BONAZELLI

Isis play Neumo's with These Arms Are Snakes and Wormwood at 8 p.m. Thurs., Nov. 18. $12 adv.

LE TIGRE
This Island
(Strummer/Le Tigre/Universal)

For the past five years, Le Tigre have been one of the most inspired groups around. Ex–Bikini Kill frontwoman and DIY poster grrrl Kathleen Hanna, Johanna Fateman, and J.D. Samson (who replaced original member Sadie Benning after the band's 1999 debut) hose down their electro-dance-punk tunes with academic theory, freethinking diatribes, and pep rally synergy. Their third album, and first on a major label, introduces the band to mainstream America, gathering swathes of Kraftwerk-cum-hip-hop beats, chain-saw guitar chords, and boop-beep knob tweakery and sassing the shit out of it . . . with mixed results. This Island is tenacious and boastful, and flaunts a prissy kind of seduction and velvet-rope mentality. If you're down with Le Tigre, you speak their language of feminism, goofiness, gender bending, and sequined headbands; if you have trouble with these seemingly inconsistent elements, you're shoved aside. The band's attitude is pretty members-only. The naughty, body bumpin' "Nanny Nanny Boo Boo" sneers, "It's just a joke man, it's just an interview/You'll never get it, I guess this shit is too new." Samson's here-and-very-extremely-queer shout out, "Viz" (as in "visibility"), paints the singer as a golden child who owns the club scene and lights up the crowd with her butch dyke pal in tow. In other words, Le Tigre are a crew in the same manner as hip-hop high rollers—carving a mighty niche for themselves, taking pleasure in flaunting their grassroots empire (no coincidence that their Web site is LeTigreWorld.com), and looking down their noses at anyone who isn't a playa. JEANNE FURY

Le Tigre play the Showbox with Robosapiens and Lesbians on Ecstasy at 8 p.m. Sun., Nov. 21. $17 adv./$20.

HAIKU D'ETAT
Coup de Theatre
(Decon/Project Blowed)

While a few unusual suspects have been producing club-friendly battle-rap bangers or surrealist beatnik electro, too many indie-rap acts these days are still trying to get by on some outdated Jeru/Premier jock-riding, as if Souls of Mischief's "93 'Til Infinity" referred to how long one could try to tap the same dreary downtempo jazz-poetic vein. Haiku d'Etat aren't much more guilty of this than most other groups left floundering in the post-Rawkus collapse, though they could be made a bit more culpable by their seniority: A supergroup-in-theory comprised of Freestyle Fellowship's Mikah 9 and Aceyalone, along with Abstract Rude of the unpromisingly named Abstract Tribe Unique, all three members have been active on record since the early '90s but sound more comfortable in that earlier context (Aceyalone's All Balls Don't Bounce particularly) than they do in the present day. All three MCs still sound sharp, even while delivering questionable thematic raps (porkpie hard bop "Katz" and awful, awful synthbilly "Dogs," consecutively), and if you like unknotted polysyllabic assonant convolution and lyrics about how the rap game needs to be fixed, then sit your ass down and tie on a bib. Just don't expect to move something: Title track aside, the narcoleptic jazz beats are more US3 cappuccino than Madlib sensemilla, and attempted big club thumpers could barely fill a phone booth. More than a retrograde diversion, less than a party, barely a lesson learned. NATE PATRIN

Haiku d'Etat play the Showbox with Del tha Funky Homosapien, Zion I, and Bukue One at 8 p.m. Mon., Nov. 22. $18 adv./$20.

DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS
The Dirty South
(New West)

Double-barreled puns in both band name and album title aside, the Drive-By Truckers don't have much, er, truck with modern rap. Lead Trucker Patterson Hood claims it's too computer-assisted for his taste. But even more than the twisting melodic guitars of classic country-rock and meaty human beat of hard, old-style R&B, the Truckers are in love with words—just like David Banner or Cee-Lo. The characters in Truckers songs are wordy to the point of desperation, coming from a similar place as Hood's disdain for machine music: namely, fear of a "progress" that's displaced a nation. The people in The Dirty South, their fourth album, lament unemployment, worry that "everyone I know's getting cancer every year," fear law enforcement, drink to forget, run drugs for baby formula, and generally feel helpless in Dubya's America (or Clinton's or Reagan's or Carter's). Unfortunately, everyone's so depressed that they sometimes forget to kick out the jams like they used to. (Notable exception: opener "Where the Devil Don't Stay." And live they can still smack the ambivalence right out of my mouth.) The stories on The Dirty South are important, because the plight of the American working poor is still underdocumented (especially, ironically enough, in modern country music). But the overall arc is so bleak, I'd suggest the band take a page from their spiritual brothers John Mellencamp and Bubba Sparxxx—who never forgot that an ounce of hope can make a pound of reality go down—and pen more songs like "Daddy's Car," a NASCAR-ified "Jack and Diane." JESS HARVELL