| CD REVIEW The Ocean |
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Band : The Ocean The Ocean’s last record, Precambrian, made a huge impression. It was some manner of revelation that a band could do SO many styles and do them all so well. And so this one, Heliocentric, is not to be judged in one sitting either. The main thing about The Ocean is that it covers a lot of musical territory between the heavier music of their roots and remarkably busy progressiveness On repeated listens it reveals itself to be a multi-layered animal that is.still chaotic but full of interesting twists and turns and manipulations. Heliocentric is one of those albums that no matter how hard you try, you just won't be able to pinpoint successfully. Likewise, the performance on their current release is appropriately convincing. On this album, The Ocean splits the vocals up between the somewhat gruff, but melodic clean singing and the old hardcore screaming. Don't listen to it if you require hardcore screams with every meal – you won't get them all the time. The vocals here, while not really standing out, manage to deliver the songs quite faithfully, while the rhythm section serves as solid backrest, and at times gives an invigorating hard drive to the melody. This album is far from boring and an interesting offering by an interesting band. Naturally, the quality of the songs vary a bit, but the general standard is still very high, with no songs actually being downright bad, just not quite up to the standard of the best pieces of the previous album. 87/100 Cosmicmasseur. |