Oh, Sleeper - Son of the Morning

This was my first Oh, Sleeper album, and for some reason still remains their most unknown album (as far as I know, I don’t know many people that listen to them). After releasing their 2007 debut that reached the ears of thousands of kids across the globe, they had to further demonstrate their songwriting and creative abilities by creating an even better record; and they did. Even though they just recently released their best record yet, Children of Fire, Son of the Morning is still a metalcore landmark in my book. There are a lot of changes that they made in their music in the two years after they released When I am God, which is what I’m here to tell you about.

Oh, Sleeper is an openly Christian band, and the reason why I’m making a note of this is because of the album cover, which was the first place where they used their know widely-known symbol. For those of you that can’t quite tell what it is, it’s a “broken pentagram” with the horns missing. Many people perceived this as being a Satanic symbol, but that misconception quickly died out after about a year.

When I saw and heard Oh, Sleeper for the first time in September, 2009, I was blown away. This was before their vocalist apparently cut his hair, because his hair was nearly down to his waist when he walked on stage. Regardless of that, this band doesn’t really fit the rest of the bands that their fans like because they have a more mature and progressive sound than other metalcore bands like Atreyu, Miss May I, and Killswitch Engage. But honestly, that doesn’t really matter because Oh, Sleeper has proved themselves to have the ability to stand out from the metalcore stereotype.

 Now since I’m writing a review on this album from the perspective of someone who has heard all the changes they’ve made in their music in the album after this (Children of Fire), I’m going to do a bit of comparing between the two before I start diving into the hardcore details of Son of the Morning. The biggest improvement that the vocalist has been making with each album is his singing. His screaming has always been top-notch, but his singing really wasn’t that impressive until Children of Fire. There is this one song off Son of the Morning that really bothers me because of the repulsive harmonization during the singing parts; that song is In All Honesty. The amount of technicality in this album is substantially greater than that of Children of Fire, demonstrating that they have tons of creative abilities on top of the technical skills.

The most notable feature of this album is obviously the seemingly constant technical riffs the lead guitarist plays. But that’s not the only thing that makes this album great, even though it’s a huge part of the album’s sound. The overall songwriting that was done on this album is astonishing compared to When I am God, which had really good songwriting to begin with! The song structures are extremely complex (depending on what you’re focusing on when you listen to it) compared to most other metalcore and screamo bands out there. Even though there is a lot of anger and fury contained within the fast parts and the breakdowns, there are frequent moments that are filled with melodic bass lines and huge atmospheric guitar chords that I’ve never heard before.

A band’s second album is always the most important (you’re probably sick of me saying that now). It’s the record that shows that the band has the ability to progress, be even more creative, and to prove that their first album wasn’t JUST a compilation of old songs, that they could actually put together great songs and have them ready for the public ear within a few years. Oh, Sleeper passed with flying colors. In all honesty (pun intended), this album is fucking great; and the Texas metalcore band known as Oh, Sleeper will only continue to get better after this. This earns 16/20. 

Oh, Sleeper - Children of Fire

Oh, Sleeper is extremely underrated amongst the metal community; getting the most attention from kids who primarily listen to screamo, metalcore, and some deathcore. Although the amount of metalheads that listen to them is gradually increasing. This was another band that I was introduced to when I saw Bring me the Horizon in September of 2009; they were the second band to come on after the British metalcore band Architects. I’ll tell you that I was blown away by their professionalism and performance when they were on stage. The instant I got home I downloaded (which at the time was) their new album, Son of the Morning, and was attacked by the same opening riffs that I first heard them play at the show. And just so you know, I have bought their CDs after I decided that they were amazing and deserved my money. Every one of their albums is great, but their sound gets more professional, more creative, and more mature with each album to the point to where they aren’t what some of you people call “crappy scene kids”. This album was just released and it’s called Children of Fire.

The record is filled with emotion, color, and technicality from the first opening line to the ambient guitar feedback at the end. One thing that I should mention is that Oh, Sleeper is one of the most technical metalcore bands out there; having more complex song structures and guitar lines than bands like The Devil Wears Prada and August Burns Red. Most of their technicality lies within the minds and hands of the guitarists. One of the best examples of this technicality would be the title song from Son of the Morning. And even though their technicality is their most prominent and well-known feature, it’s not the only quality they hold.

Children of the Fire uses Son of the Morning as a blueprint; and instead of just creating a whole new sound, they just build off of their 2009 album, making it into something bigger. One of the new sounds that the band has added to their music is the ultra-soft melodic parts with blissful singing and exceptional vocal harmonization. This is even added onto the technical sound of the guitars in Hush Yael, which is immediately followed by the one minute acoustic track to add a touch of melodic beauty and diversity to the record; perfect for those of you that like to hear more than one sound on an album.

And of course what would metalcore be without breakdowns? This album is filled with perfect breakdowns that aren’t that brutal, but still can conduct the heaviest headbanging. My favorite examples from this album would be The Marriage of Steel and Skin, Hush Yael, Endseeker, and the heaviest track on the album, Dealers of Fame; which is where the heaviest breakdowns are released. In other words, the breakdowns are purely amazing.

I remember Son of the Morning not having quite enough bass, making it kind of difficult to listen to on my earbuds at high volumes. The production work on this album is much better. All of the sound levels are perfectly balanced out with a little boost of the vocals. None of the instruments drown out the rest of the band (another sign of professionalism).

My favorite songs off this record are Endseeker, The Marriage of Steel and Skin, Dealers of Fame, and the title track. Let me tell you what I like about the last song on the album, which is also the title track. The part that really spoke out to me is a part that contains my absolute favorite kind of breakdown that always gives me chills and creates a smile on my face; and that is the slow breakdown that is accompanied by the lead guitarist hammering high-pitched technical guitar lines. One of the best breakdowns like that is in The Human Condition from Desolation of Eden by Chelsea Grin. But even though that’s the best one on the album, there are a couple of breakdowns like that in songs like Endseeker and The Marriage of Steel and Skin. Oh, Sleeper couldn’t have chosen a better opening track than Endseeker. Until you hear that song, you have no idea what you’re up against; Endseeker takes all of the different sounds of this album and compresses them into a three minute song. I highly suggest you listen to the other songs I listed above and the rest of the album

This album is definitely the best metalcore release of 2011; showing mind-blowing creativity, maturity, and technicality. Even though I highly recommend you look up this album, I also would suggest that you look up their other two albums because they’re awesome too! I would, though, like to see this band do a little more progression and change on their next album than what they did on this record. This album earns a highly deserved score from me of 18/20. 

Rest in Peace Oceano

Architects - Hollow Crown

I was introduced to the Architects when they were the first band to play when I saw Bring me the Horizon in September of 2009. Now just to let you know, I love everything BMTH released prior to their 2010 disaster. But Bring me the Horizon isn’t what I’m here to tell you about; that’s for another time. The Architects came on with Early Grave and the whole crowd started going absolutely nuts with headbanging and jumping. The next day I looked them up and got this album and it was awesome. After a couple of months I listened to their other albums; and now I’m back to only having this album. If you don’t see what I’m getting at, I’m saying that their other albums SUCK! Because of this, Hollow Crown is one of the biggest flukes in the history of metal.

Before I jump into talking about the album, I would like to say that Architects and BMTH have been brothers since the beginning (they’ve both been around for about the same amount of time, BMTH still puts the Architects as an opening act on almost every one of their tours). They both have influenced each other’s music in some sort of way; the biggest influence is what I will talk about next.

The biggest reason why so many people despise Bring me the Horizon is because Oliver Sykes started doing that retarded-sounding yell. Now it’s gotten to the point to where you rarely hear him scream or growl (unless of course they are playing an older song live). You know where I think Oliver got that idea from? Listen to this album, and then listen to the other Architects albums. Although that vocal style sounds better in this album because the music style differs from that off BMTH’s albums, it still gets irritating after a while of listening to it.

The biggest problem that I have with this band is the same problem that I have with Meshuggah; and that is that the album seems like a constant breakdown. Fortunately, there are some sped up parts to get the pit going and there are some more melodic parts backed by slightly better than average singing. But it just seems like there is a lack of creativity (which is why this is a fluke, because they had no creativity in any of their other records).

For those of you that love to headbang, this is going to be a great album for you. You’ll turn on the first song and say “Oh Hellyeah!!” The first track is filled with thick and heavy breakdowns with enough bass to make a dubstep fan happy and even has some melodic parts. The beginning of the next song sounds almost exactly like Early Grave, but I mean, there’s nothing wrong with doing the same thing more than once; it’s just when you do the same thing too many times when there’s an obvious lack of creativity and commitment. Dethroned is more of a moshing song that has extreme drops with tons of meaty bass within the kick drums; definitely something that puts a smile on my face. But after that, the albums gradually gets more and more dull.

The sound quality of this record is astonishing compared to the albums previous to it. The guitar distortion has tons of treble and an inconceivable amount of bass, but with very little mid-range; therefore creating a unique sound perfect for the metalcore genre. When you hear this album, instead of hearing a bunch of musicians, you hear a band; which is EXACTLY what I want to hear. But it seems that now they’ve gone back to mediocrity; which is why this album is a fluke. I still listen to this album and enjoy it, but it’s the only good album that this band has put out so far. I would give this record 13/20.  

Xasthur - To Violate the Oblivious

Unfortunately Xasthur and the rest of the ambient black metal scene has had the least success out of all the metal genres in existence. Although there have been some semi-successful ambient black artists like Xasthur, Elffor, and Woods of Desolation; the majority of the ambient black (sometimes referred to as depressive black metal) population has continued to be extremely underground. But the people that do enjoy it (myself included) are diehard supporters that listen to numerous bands from that area. Xasthur has become one of my favorite bands next to Opeth, Breaking Benjamin, and Decrepit Birth. Now anyone can listen to Malefic (the sole member of Xasthur) and be able to tell that he is not an amazing musician that holds unusual technical skills. In fact, he’s a pretty mediocre musician as far as metal standards go. The reason why people like me enjoy Xasthur and other similar artists is not because of the musicianship, but because of the ability the artist has to stimulate intense emotions within the listener. Believe me, it’s not something that you will instantly appreciate; it took me over a year before I truly came to appreciate and enjoy listening to Xasthur.

Ambient black can have many different sides. One of the sounds it has is a very melodic sound created with slow tempos and highly distorted guitars that sounds beautiful. Some bands that do this would be Woods of Desolation, Gris, and Blutklinge. Another one of the sounds is that really out-of-tune, dark, depressing sound that seems like an auditory brain scan of Charles Manson. There are also some bands like Velvet Cacoon that mix in amounts of traditional black metal with their music. Xasthur literally reaches out to all of these areas plus others. To Violate the Oblivious is an album that covers many different sounds and moods rather than primarily focusing on a certain sound like many of Xasthur’s other records.

The two minute intro track is Malefic demonstrating a beautiful improvisation on the keyboards. The root chords in the second song are very melodic. But the lead guitar parts cover more of a traditional black metal sound with some abstract licks. The drumming is faster than what you would normally hear from other ambient black artists, but it doesn’t take away the relaxing vibe from the music. To Violate the Oblivious is also where Malefic starts using a lot more keyboards to back up the music.

What I may have described before about Xasthur’s basic sound probably sounds a bit unpleasant. Honestly, melodic music touches everyone in some way or another. Xasthur’s music is one of the most beautiful sounds ever to reach my ears. Although it has a thick layer of low production quality, bad tuning, and high distortion disguising it, after listening to it over and over again, you start to notice the downsides becoming more transparent and eventually seeing the beauty within the core.

The only reason why I like this album better than Subliminal Genocide is because it doesn’t have those seemingly pointless and overused interludes throughout the record. Since the album doesn’t have those obstacles that appear, it becomes a constant flowing river of beauty, ambience, and relaxation that pulls you in as soon as you turn it on.

The guitar distortion on this album is my favorite out of all the other Xasthur records. It’s not too high-pitched, there’s not too much fuzz, not too narrow sounding but not too wide either, and even though it has a low sound quality, it still sounds clear and crisp. There are some songs where the guitar drones on for the entire track that create the atmosphere that completely encloses you and shuts you out from the outside world. There is one song that touches me the most and creates the most intense emotions within me, and that is the last track, Walker of Dissonant Worlds.

Walker of Dissonant Worlds is an instrumental track that consists completely of guitar tracks. The only official Xasthur music video is one of this song that has someone walking around with a camera following Malefic himself through his house and out onto a train track. The most unique thing about this video is that after the camera finishes following Malefic, it travels through parts of downtown Los Angeles and shows the homeless. I’m going to be honest and say that this video is very depressing and unfortunately true. None of it was staged and the homeless men and women filmed are sometimes high or obviously insane. A sign that one of the people holds up has a very rebellious and angry message that reads “The pain Jesus experienced is nothing compared to mine”. Some of you may be asking why Malefic would choose this to be in his video. The answer lies in the lyrics that he writes. The song also sounds completely different and creates an entirely different emotion in the video than it does when you’re just listening to it.

This album is filled with depression, anger, beauty, bliss, relaxation, hope, regret, and melody. This is one of my favorite albums of all-time and I would suggest that you look it up. I will warn you that you shouldn’t be surprised if the music speaks out to you as being repulsive; so try to be understanding that this has an acquired taste and possibly isn’t your cup of tea.  I would give this album a perfect score. Xasthur is a project I will never forget and I will never stop listening to even though it is no longer in existence. 

Sickening - Against the Wall of Pretence

I discovered Sickening via Amputated Vein Records along with several other bands including Disentomb, Visceral Disgorge, Bloodboil, and Eden Beast. Most of the bands that I’ve heard off that label have been pretty impressive, but Sickening is one of the mediocre bands on the label. I downloaded this album as soon as it was released because the album cover looks awesome and I was going through a brutal death phase. Ever since I first heard these guys, my opinion hasn’t changed one bit. The hardest albums to review are the mediocre ones, so this is going to be one of my shorter reviews because there isn’t that much uniqueness about this album. But the reason why I am reviewing this record is because it’s underground and I’m one that likes to give underground metal bands publicity with hopes that they will either get more attention or that they will get more feedback and improve their music.

The vocals aren’t really my cup of tea. They have the same sound as the vocalist of Ezophagothomia; if you haven’t heard them, their vocalist sounds like he consumed two liters of Mountain Dew before he entered the studio (and I’m pretty sure you know what carbonated beverages do to you). Although there is the occasional pigsqueal that comes out of his chops during songs like Blind Obsession and Unhealthy Illusions, the belching sound that the vocalist makes isn’t something that attracts me as being a vocalist that has any skill at all.

The drumming is somewhat off-time, which is something that irritates the shit out of me no matter what band is doing it. Any above average band at least has mastered the ability to keep a steady beat (specifically the drummer). So that means that Sickening is pretty average. But the album isn’t horrible, there aren’t very many downsides to this record other than the ones I have already described; it’s just that there aren’t really any upsides to it either. The production quality of the album is very crisp and clear for a band as underground and obscure as these guys, which shows that the band at least cares somewhat about what they’re delivering to your eardrums. The guitar distortion is crunchy with a layer of fuzziness to give it a bit of a grind sound.

The sound of the kick drums kind of bothers me. They don’t have that really fat, meaty sound with lots of bass that a brutal death band needs to have. They sound narrow, small, and weak; but at least they aren’t super high-pitched with no bass at all. There are some headbanging moments on the album that give you something to nod your head to, but it’s not the kind of thing that gives you the strong urge to just start going nuts like the Soilwork song Stabbing the Drama does.

Overall, the main thing that cost this band so many points on my rating is their crappy vocalist. So they need to get a new vocalist that can do deep guttural exhales as well as turning up the bass and widening the sound of the kick drums. Like I said before, this is one of my shorter reviews due to the lack of uniqueness on the album. I would give this 11/20 and would only suggest this to the brutal death fans. 

Revocation - Existence is Futile

I’ve (unintentionally) seen Revocation three times as being the first band to play. Honestly, I think they’ve been at the bottom of the list long enough. Even though I was amazed by these guys while seeing them onstage, I kept forgetting to look them up until my friend got one of their CDs when he saw them open for Despised Icon. The CD happened to be their first album which is titled Empire of the Obscene. I don’t know about the rest of you guys, but I think it’s one of the best debuts to come out since Gore Metal by Exhumed! And ever since then, Revocation has continued to raise the bar and reach new heights. Even though the two genres they fuse the most is thrash metal and death metal, they have all sorts of crazy shit going on in their music.

I’m going to jump right into my favorite thing about this album and that is that most of the guitar solos on this record sound like something from a 70s heavy metal/classic rock album! It doesn’t seem like something like that would be able to fit on a thrash death album, but it sounds amazing. Dismantle the Dictator and Anthem of the Betrayed have the best guitar solos on the record; and they always make me smile when I hear them because they bring back fond memories of when Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath was all I listened to. Along with that, there are hard rock and heavy metal sounds rooted deeply within the album that can be heard even in the rhythm guitars and the drums.

There are a few metalcore-styled breakdowns that pop out during some of the songs. The best one is during the intro of Leviathan Awaits when there is the breakdown being played by the bass and the drums while the lead guitar continues to hammer out the intro guitar line (which is one of my favorite types of breakdowns by the way). Because of the metalcore influence this album has, there is that vibe the record has that makes it perfect for headbanging.

The technicality of this album occasionally reaches inconceivable levels. These songs that are bursting at the seams with technicality and speed are what have made Revocation known to the world. Although I know technical skills alone isn’t enough to impress me, in this case it’s added on to a huge fudge cake of color, emotion, creativity, and inspiration; That is when technicality sounds best. I would like the guitars to have more of a crunchy sound but they recently fulfilled that need on their 2011 record, Chaos of Forms. So since they took care of my appetite for Revocation crunchiness, I’m not bothered by the lack of it on this record anymore.

Revocation is one of those bands that can be pretty hard to fully soak in within the first month of you listening to them. It really takes a while to fully take in their music and understand it. Although some of you might beg to differ with that statement, I know that there is at least one band that you had to listen to for a month or so before you could fully soak in their sound and understand them. Obviously you can tell that I am in love with this next to flawless record, and I’m not even going to list the flaws because they are so small and subtle that they’re pretty much unnoticeable. I would give this album 18/20. 

In the Midst of Lions - The Heart of Man

This is a band that can accurately be considered 100% pure, traditional, generic deathcore. I first discovered these guys in 2009 when they only had one album out, so I had already heard these guys before and liked them enough to look up this album when I saw it had been released. Deathcore has been around long enough to have a traditional generic sound that bands can take and add on their own creativity to. There are some bands that have decided to keep the pure deathcore sound alive like Eat a Helicopter (funny name), Chelsea Grin, I Declare War, Suffokate, and In the Midst of Lions. I am sorry to say that these kind of traditional deathcore bands rarely impress me. I’ve been listening to deathcore since its first explosion in 2007 when I heard bands like Suicide Silence, Bring me the Horizon, All Shall Perish, Heaven Shall Burn, Born of Osiris, Despised Icon, Whitechapel, and Lamb of God. Almost five years of being an active deathcore fan, I feel that I’ve become extremely familiar and knowledgeable with the genre. Although the majority of the traditional deathcore bands I’ve heard failed to impress me, the ones I listed above (including Chelsea Grin, Suffokate, etc.) are some of the few that have succeeded in reaching out to me and catching my positive attention.

Traditional deathcore really isn’t as brutal as bands like Suicide Silence, Carnifex, and Whitechapel. Those bands mix a lot of brutal death, death metal, and occasionally some grindcore in with their music. The breakdowns that In the Midst of Lions pull off are good for headbanging, but not the kind that cause you to get whiplash. There aren’t very many guitar solos on this album that I can hear (shredding in deathcore is never bad). There are some melodic riffs played by the guitars but they are repetitive and drone on a little too long.

The vocalist does mainly growls, but he can do a good scream although it’s not super high-pitched. The drumming is kind of boring with the only interesting parts occurring with the complex footwork during the breakdowns. The blast beats that he does are way too short and seem to be placed randomly without much thought on how dramatically it can change the sound of the song. The drummer is really the powerhouse behind the breakdown. The thing that really makes that drop in tempo sound good or bad usually leads back to what the drummer is doing; and in this case, the drummer is doing the exact same thing during every breakdown.

Now that I’m done complaining, let me tell you that this album is in fact worth checking out. Although it’s something that I don’t listen to very often, it is enjoyable to have as background music because there isn’t really anything interesting that grabs your attention. The production quality is impressive, there is quite a bit of bass which is never bad, and the guitarists and the bassist are extremely tight with each other. The biggest improvement that they can make is making the drummer tight with the rest of the band. If they can do that, their music will sound so much better and much more professional. Overall, this album is better than average, but not amazing, I would recommend this mainly just to you deathcore fans. I would rate this album 13/20. 

Interview with The Devil's Blood

On Monday morning, I had the short-lasted pleasure to interview the guitarist for the Dutch Satanic rock n’ roll band The Devil’s Blood. The reason why I say that it was short-lasted was because the asshole ended up hanging up on me in the middle of the interview. Curious as to why? Then read on…Everything in brackets was not something I actually said to him.

The offer to interview them was posted on Spirit of Metal so I thought “why the hell not? I’ve never officially ‘interviewed’ a band before!” Like many interviews that you may read/hear/see have a couple of introductory questions (especially if the band is underground and generally unknown like The Devil’s Blood). I started out by telling him that I was a bit surprised by their sound which was not a heavy rock sound (like I was expecting), but the kind of sound you would normally hear from a 60s or 70s classic rock band! Now I’m a huge fan of music from that era so I asked him if the band has any influences from that time period and he gave me a statement that didn’t really answer the question. He basically said “Well I listen to all kinds of music and yes I do listen to a lot of rock bands from the 60s, 70s, and 80s.” ….um..ok? Well that’s good to hear but you didn’t really answer my question!

I then continued on to the next question noting that I saw some live photos of the band and that they were covered in blood; which isn’t something that is combined with that classic rock sound. And yes, I know that it has been done before with artists like Alice Cooper, The Misfits, etc. And I asked him what the reception from the public has been towards this odd combination of music style and stage appearance. AND HE FREAKING WENT OFF ON ME!! He said “I’m sorry but I don’t think that it’s an odd combination at all and bands have been doing that since the 60s so I believe that the validity of the statement you just said is very wrong and that you need to do more research on music history because there have been bands like Alice Cooper that have been having these Satanic views and imagery with rock n’ roll and that it’s not something that is and should be confined only to the extreme metal genres, so no, it is not an odd combination.” First of all, he again failed to answer my question, his tone of voice was not nice at all, he was very rude, and did I say ANYTHING about the blood and satanic imagery to be only a characteristic of the extreme metal genres?? I then realized I forgot to mention that I did know that there were other classic rock bands that have done that so I said ‘You know what, you’re right about the fact that there have been other artists that have had the dramatic performances like KISS and Alice Cooper, so I temporarily forgot about that, but it’s still not something that is done very often’ and then he mumbled something that I couldn’t understand (he’s from Holland and had a thick accent so I couldn’t really understand some of what he was saying). I started noticing the tension in his voice rising. I then asked him if the blood they used in their performances was just fake stage blood and he said “No no it’s real blood” So then I was about to ask him the next question when he interrupted me and cockily said: “Hey I’m sorry to interrupt you but all of the questions you’ve been asking me can easily be answered by looking us up on Google and I haven’t heard any good questions or questions about our new album and I feel that this interview isn’t going anywhere so you need to ‘do your homework’ and do more research on us and on rock history so that you have more knowledge and then we will have this talk another time, bye.” Then he hung up. Um, excuse me, sorry to break it to you man, but you guys aren’t famous, so you can’t be fucking cocky like that! And what were you expecting, an interviewer from Rolling Stone magazine?? If you don't like the questions I'm asking then why didn't you just send me the questions you wanted me to ask?? (which is fucking lame). Also, he doesn’t seem to get the fact that not everyone is looking his band up on Google, isn’t the purpose of an interview to be a chance for the people who didn’t bother to do deep intense research on the band to learn more about them?? And also, the thing that he DID’NT bother to hear was that all of the remaining questions I had for him were about the new album!! Some of them included: so how did you get a deal with Metal Blade Records? What would you say the differences are between your new record and your 2009 record? And is there anything you would like to say? (Pretty much a free response question). I was about to buy these guys’ CDs and merch! BUT NOT ANYMORE!! I have been telling all my friends and THE THOUSANDS OF YOU THAT VIEW ME EACH MONTH to NOT SUPPORT THIS BAND!! THEY DON’T DESERVE IT!!

Oceano - Contagion

I’ve been listening to Oceano since the release of Depths in 2009. Depths is one of the best examples of a debut that is a compilation of Oceano songs from before they got signed on to a label. I heard Depths and thought “this is pretty good, but eh, not what I would call one of my favorites.” But even though I had such mediocre feelings towards their debut, I came to find out that I was listening to this album addictively; so there’s some subliminally addictive quality in their music that gets the listener hooked. So when I saw on Spirit of Metal that Oceano had a new album out I decided to give it a spin and I was surprised with how much the band had improved. There is one thing that they probably shouldn’t have done on their first album and that was having 15 songs, because Contagion only has 10. Having a bunch of songs on your first album makes the listener expect a similar amount of material on the next album; but in this case, the size of Contagion is slightly overpowered by that of Depths. But what is within these 10 tracks makes up for the lack in size.

Those of you that are already familiar with the basic history of deathcore can just skip this paragraph. Since 2007, deathcore has continued to reign as one of the most popular metal genres in existence; with many deathcore bands appearing on the Mayhem Festival and even on the Warped Tour (not the best place for them). The reason why I say 2007 is because many of today’s biggest deathcore heavyweights released their first album during that year. If you don’t believe me, some of those bands include Suicide Silence, Whitechapel, Carnifex, Born of Osiris, and Attila. Even though deathcore was already around by this time with bands like Despised Icon, All Shall Perish, Bring me the Horizon, Lamb of God, and Heaven Shall Burn, it didn’t make its way to the ears of the mainstream metalheads until 2007. After that year, there was an explosion of deathcore bands around the world! The next big year for new deathcore debuts was 2009 with bands that are now huge and some bands that are still underground but still loved by the hardcore deathcore fans. Some of those bands include In the Midst of Lions, I Built the Cross, Here Comes the Kraken, Bleed from Within, As you Drown, and Oceano.

The hardest thing about writing a review is knowing where to start. Oceano is one of the deathcore bands that has more growls than screams (kind of like Carnifex and Born of Osiris). They’re best known for their huge black vocalist made of what seems like solid muscle. His growls aren’t guttural at all; in fact, they have a tad bit of a mid-range sound to them but still have a deep and extremely powerful sound.

I think they went a little overboard with the breakdowns in their first album; and it seems that they thought that too because the amount of breakdowns in Contagion is far less than that of Depths. There are some bands that are irritating and uncreative because the majority of their songs seem like a constant breakdown (i.e. Emmure and Meshuggah) without any buildup at all. When it comes to that sudden extreme drop in temperature known as a “breakdown”, I think that they sound best when there is some buildup of tension and power to make it sound more extreme. If you can’t come up with a good buildup, another thing that can make a breakdown sound epic is having a sudden faster breakdown that then eventually drops into a slower brutal tempo made to inflict whiplash upon the listeners. Some great examples of this on Contagion would be the two breakdowns on the eighth track, Weaponized, which also turns out to be my favorite. But these breakdowns occur all throughout the album and they’re nowhere near being unnecessary or overused. But for those of you who headbang, the BEST headbanging part would be the breakdown during the second half of the first track, I’ll leave it up to you to find it.

The guitar distortion in Contagion sounds almost exactly like the one from Depths; only Contagion’s guitars are a little smoother and less crunchy. The guitar work in general is much more interesting in this album rather than just deep chugging like what was done in Depths. The drumming is very tight and precise, seldom using blast beats to express rage; instead, the rage is expressed in the symbols during the breakdowns when the drummer lifts his arms up high and brings them down on the symbols like he’s chopping someone in half. He even cracked one of his symbols when I saw them live at the 2011 Summer Slaughter Tour.

In Depths, all of the musicians were good, but the band wasn’t too impressive. In Contagion, all of the musicians are good, and the band is even better. It sometimes takes a couple of years before the members of a band truly interlock and become family. This is very apparent in Contagion because it sounds more like a band playing rather than a bunch of musicians playing.

Overall, this is one of the best deathcore albums ever released. I know that what I may have described probably doesn’t sound as amazing as the rating I gave the album, but a truly amazing piece of music is not defined by the amount of technicality or skill of the musicians, it’s defined by the ability it has to create emotions within the listener, and Contagion is a very powerful album that does a perfect job of that, I would give this 20/20 making this my new favorite deathcore band.