EVERYONE INTO POSITION

Oceansize was to me one of the big surprises of the last few years. I regard "Effloresce" as a brilliant album and even its successor EP "Music for Nurses" was pretty good. When I heard the news that a new full-length Oceansize album was about to be released I was on one hand very curious and excited about whether it was equally good as the band's previous output, on the other hand I was also a bit anxious that it wasn't.

After listening to the album for a few times I thought it simply did not live up to the standards and I stored it with all my other CDS, until at one point, weeks later, I decided to give the album another go and surprisingly it someone did work for me by that time. I guess it's all about the sound of the album. The music has a more straightforward approach and there's fewer room left in the compositions for the atmospheric interlude parts. These unfortunately were the things what their "Effloresce" debut album was so praised for. I decided to visit the band live on tour, perhaps that would lead me to appreciating this album a bit more.

And it certainly did.

I had the luck to see them doing a set of old and new songs (from all 3 studio releases) with some brilliant sound engineering. The three guitars were noticeable individual and I could make up things I never heard before while listening to the album, but did after hearing it live once! For instance there's this guitar part in the song Heaven alive which sounds like birds!

A surprising new approach on this album is part of the vocal department. Lead vocalist Mike Vennart screams a lot more on this album than we're just from him. Okay there's screaming vocals on both the "Effloresce" albums as well as on the "Music for Nurses" EP, but they're most of the time in the background, as a sort of background vocals to the normally sung lead vocals, but on for instance the song A Homage to a Shame he screams quite a few lines. This song by the way sounds as if it is a continuation of the "One out of nOne" track on the "Music for Nurses" EP. There are a few reprises of vocal lines as well as instrumental parts.

A few of the songs show the band heading of into post-rock territories, resembling music by Sigur Rós on the songs Music for a Nurse and Mine Host. Perhaps a bit of a prediction for the future? Also the inclusion of electronic drumming on New Pin sounds promising. Love to see them incorporation more electronic in their music. But no one knows what to expect for the future.

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