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Oceansize EP
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by Gareth Dobson
Whilst your average Funeral For A Million Copperpot Dead-type bands are happy to provide three-and-a-half-minute bouts of tuneful, guitar-mangled madness, you can always be sure that someone out there's dreaming of something a bit more extravagant; that bit more twisted and a jot more interesting. Then there's Oceansize. With a name as expansively accurate as anybody's, it's no surprise to hear the band of the army of guitars march inexorably on towards sonic doom with a lemon twist.

Their agenda slapped on the table with the confidence and gusto of a nymphomaniac in a brothel, the EP's title track reminds of fellow Mancunians Elbow's 'Any Day Now' if it were armed with giant, jagged, mechanical teeth. The song engorges itself until it regurgitates a filthy crescendo of warped metal guitars which Metallica would give their shrivelled livers for. The real bludgeonation to the skull is the third track, a live version of 'Massive Bereavement' which begins like a foray into Soundgarden's murky undergrowth and finishes as a raging full-metal onslaught akin to being Tool's bearded North Westerly cousins. You can decide if this sounds good yourselves.

One besotted radio presenter disingenuously described Oceansize as "like Massive Attack, if they were a guitar band", which is to miss the point by half. They're more akin to their brothers in guitar arms, Aereogramme; taking the cold shapes and forms of their electronically inclined relations and forming beating, warm blooded, if unholy, creations. We used to call it prog-rock you know. But I wouldn't wanna scare ya.

  • Oceansize 8 / 10
Words: Gareth Dobson

Oceansize - One Day All This Could Be Yours

You're really quite good at this writing lark, aren't you?

KPxx




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