THE END OF THE OCEAN

'-aire' is the name of the 3rd full length album from the Post-rock band 'The End of the Ocean' from Ohio. The band features two guitarists, a keyboardist, bass and drums. The music is all instrumental and features a more accessible style of post-rock, still featuring heavy sections, but moving from soft sections to heavy section a lot quicker and featuring less meandering sections. The melodies are more of a song style and structure than a lot of post-rock bands, and also features several shorter tracks staying around 3 ' 4 minutes long. The style is very similar to 'God is an Astronaut', in that the music is heavy at times and quite pleasant at other, probably with more of an accessible feel to the music.

Starting with 'Endure', we get a nice keyboard led track that eventually gets joined by a march style rhythm. This builds until the guitars join in following the two chord melody started by the keyboards. The last part of the song has a steady and solid beat echoed by the heavy guitars. Next is 'Bravado', which has a quicker beat and a solider punch. After this introduction, things settle to a more simple sound keeping a heaviness which is accented by staccato keys. It returns to the more solid sound later before ending on a chiming guitar melody.

After these shorter tracks, the next track 'Jubilant' actually makes it past 5 minutes. The title is fitting as this track, while still heavy on the guitars, is a brighter sound and an upbeat feel. As it continues, the sound is quite jangle-y at first, but soon, a rapid fire percussion builds a lot of intensity leading to the last section that repeats the soft / loud formula. 'Self' has a lusher feel to it and a nice mellow strummed and picked guitar line. When the percussion settles in, the track is a very smooth sound that result in a very accessible track.

At over 7 minutes, 'Homesick' is the longest track on the album. Sustained chords from the keys make a lush background for jangly, U2 style guitars that stay quite soft at first. The sound remains atmospheric, expansive and airy. At 3 minutes, the entire band suddenly comes in with a slow to medium beat, and the intensity grows. The tension lets up towards the middle and then gets heavy again. There are 5 more tracks that continue with this same basic sound.

The music pretty much follows the usual post-rock style and sound, it just does it in a more accessible way than most post-rock bands to. The music is nice, the players are talented, but it all just comes across as average post-rock with nothing new really coming out of it all. There is the jangling softness and the heavy loudness that you expect with this style of music. But there is nothing ground-breaking about it. You've heard it all before, but if you haven't, then at least it is a good access point to the world of instrumental post-rock music.