ALBUM REVIEW: A Motion Paralysed – River Becomes Ocean
Post-hardcore four-piece RIVER BECOMES OCEAN make their mark with their debut album A Motion Paralysed, as the next emerging talent from Brighton. And with support and a feature from Liam Cormier of hardcore Canadian band CANCER BATS, their credentials are high but so is their musical content.
Their album is varied in palate, from heartbreak ballads like Happy to heavier, more hardcore songs like their single Silence Means Nothing, featuring Cormier. Cormier dominates the track with his aggressive tone and screaming vocals. But RIVER BECOMES OCEAN’s identity is not wiped out, as they bring in their classical and theatrical touch by having repeated chanting vocals of playing in the background. Adding that against the harsh and rough vocals from Cormier and RIVER BECOMES OCEAN front man Marvin McMahon creates a beautiful oxymoron of a musical piece.
Take My Hand is a goose bump inducing track and is the hidden gem of the album. The song starts off with razor sharp yet steady guitar riffs before the pace gets faster, as loud hard-hitting drums are introduced. The instruments play in perfect harmony to a background of orchestral sounding vocals on repeat. The tempo then completely slows down, and cold notes of piano begin to play as a hopeless sounding McMahon sings and pleads with the line “Please give us shelter in your kingdom.” Yet the neutral tone that he’s singing in is counter-intuitively hypnotising.
The song echoes the current refugee crisis and its lyrics are so moving and immersive that it makes you question what you can do to help fix this problem. And if this song was a movie it would be a thriller, with the sudden and suspenseful slowing down of tempo just for it all to be accelerated again for your hearing pleasure. The politically driven song is the best track on the album undoubtedly and it should be released as a single of its own rights.
A Motion Paralysed could stand as the soundtrack for a major motion picture film. And that’s all down to the polished production, swift yet suspenseful transitions and their vocalist McMahon’s incredible range and harmonising capabilities. But, more importantly, RIVER BECOMES OCEAN’s tracks are purposeful as they make you not only feel a range of emotions from heartache to sadness, but they also make you stop and think about topics like immigration. So they manage to build a bridge between themselves and their listeners through their meaningful and heartfelt songs and this bridge is the connection they need to turn listeners into true hardcore fans and cheerers on.
RIVER BECOMES OCEAN have delivered a captivatingly complex and rich album with A Motion Paralysed, with layers of McMahon’s vocal harmonies mixed in with heavy riffs and pulsing yet controlled drumming. Thus, creating textures of sounds that make you want to see this magical recipe of sound, happen live with great urgency! So, listening to their debut album is an unmissable cinematic experience that leaves you feeling confident that you’ve stumbled upon a band set to dominate the post-hardcore scene.
Rating: 8/10
A Motion Paralysed is out now via Department Musik.
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