EFFLORESCE

Effloresce is Oceansize debut album and a good example of how modern prog rock can sound. This is not retrospective prog rock. There are no seventies sounding keyboard sounds or anything else that links Oceansize to that great era of innovative music which is refreshing and innovative in it´s own respect. In line with a band like Tool, Oceansize is very rythmic orientated while still maintaining a very melodic and accessible sound. There are hints toward grunge but there are also some psychadelic/ space rock elements here on Effloresce.

It´s taken me a while to get through Effloesce as it is a very long album. 75:31 minutes to be exact and while I would normally bitch about such a long album, there is literally nothing here that I would discard of. The music is generally midpaced or slow and if I should complain about anything it would be that there are no uptempo songs which would be great for the diversity, but I guess Ocenasize likes the more stoned approach.

The albums starts with the beautiful instrumental opener I Am The Morning which is followed by the energetic Catalyst. Catalyst is pretty much vers chorus but ends with an instrumental part that I regard as progressive. Cool part. One Day All This Could Be Yours is a bit more stoned, but it´s not less impressive. There are many good songs on Effloresce and some excellent too and other than the already mentioned songs I would pick the melodic Amputee, the long and stoned Massive Bereavement and the funny titled Women Who Love Men Who Loves Drugs but you could pick any song on Effloesce as they are all good.

The musicianship is good. Just don´t expect crazy instrumental runs because this music is not about show-of but about emotional playing. The vocals are good and diverse. It´s a bit too emo like for my taste sometimes but I can live with that when the music is good.

The production is very good. One of the better modern productions I have heard in a while. Effloesce started out as a 4 star album for me but after listening to the album many times I have come to the conclusion that I will give it 3 big stars. It´s a good album but it doesn´t quite hit my personal taste.