Isis is one of those bands some of my friends have been into forever. I have heard their music countless times. A few years back I picked up “Oceanic” and began loving them myself. After a string of excellent albums the band closes out the decade with “Wavering Radiant,” officially tossing their hat in the ring for best band of the decade.

Isis wastes little time punching out a riff and barreling into the opener “Hall of the Dead,” setting a medium tempo from the start. It’s obvious the band is not going to have Turner sing as much as he did on “In the Absence of Truth,” and I think it suits the music better when he swaps between growling and showing off his vocal pipes. “Ghost Key” follows up with a floating synth riff and alternates between quiet and loud, keeping a similar pace as the opener. By the end of “Hand of the Host,” the band seems to have hit cruise control on the tempo and is trying to get the most out of it, a severe change from everything they’ve ever done.

“Radiant” is divided into two clear halves with its intermission-style title track.

“Stone to Wake a Serpent” leads off the second half with the same stylings of the first half: mid-tempo pace, atmospheric synths, quiet/loud dynamics, and a mixture of Turner growling and letting his vocals soar on top of everything. By the time the closer “Threshold of Transformation” kicks off with the heaviest riffing of the album and fades out over its final four minutes, it is clear Isis wanted to keep their sound and travel in a new direction with this album.

It seemed Isis progressed by cleaning their musical act up from “Oceanic” through “Truth.” They shrugged off some of their heaviness with “Oceanic,” often playing a slow and loose groove, giving the album a rare quality of a band reaching the pinnacle of a playing style as if they were tapping into a quality not of this world. With “Panopticon” and “Truth,” Isis became more proficient musicians, Turner sang more (they produced his vocals to be cleaner, too), the band sped songs up and threw in spacey breakdowns.

“Radiant” is a reinvention of their style, much like “Oceanic” was. There was no progression left at the end of “Truth” without a major change. The band rides one tempo instead of making you wonder when they’re going to change pace. Synths create the atmosphere more than the band’s trudging guitars and quiet leads. It’s almost as if Isis wants to steadily grind through the album, showing perseverance and dedication to an idea. There is little jumping around.

Isis is a band flexing one muscle and proving to you they can do more with that one muscle than trying to flex them all at once. This is the main strength and fault with the album.

“Wavering Radiant” is an excellent album, possibly being the best starting place for someone to first hear the band’s music. If nothing else it’s made me excited about hearing another Isis record in a few more years, something I can’t say about most bands after as many albums.