ALBUM REVIEW: Happy – Oceans
Fresh from their rise in popularity stemming from their second album, touring with bigger and bigger names in the rising metal underground scene, OCEANS have returned with their highly anticipated third album Happy. And although the title of the album may suggest a shift in tone of the band’s sound and lyrical content, rest assured they’re back as hard hitting and heavier than you could have thought.
Parasite is the album’s opener sitting at just under two minutes and whether you count it as the first official track or just an album introduction, it’s the perfect piece to see the record in. The guitars of Timo Rotten and Patrick Zarske are muffled and hidden behind a wall of vocals and spoken word pieces before Rotten’s vocals murmur into focus as they become clearer until he screams and the band bursts into an avalanche of chaos. His screams echo as drummer Jakob Grill blast beats his way into your skull as the song seamlessly transitions into Spit with a slow build up before the death metal speed riffs and blast beats once again come into play. Even a few seconds into Spit it’s clear that whatever OCEANS were holding back on their previous albums they’ve unleashed on Happy.
While their lyrics are still promoting and raising awareness around mental health, they’ve taken a new bull-in-a-china-shop like focus toward their songwriting. The more you listen the clearer it becomes that OCEANS have found their sound. They have blended genres in the past on their other albums and EPs, but not to this degree. While their nu-metal roots are still showing, they’ve drifted more toward the aggression of death metal to propel the songs further, with blast beats making a more forward appearance on Grill’s behalf. His limbs are like machines in a factory: precise and never stopping, only for a few moments where the slower breakdowns rear their head before being swept back under the carpet by the post-rock that covers a good portion of the album.
Click Like Share includes a sample of a clip from the ‘sprite challenge’, complete with belch as the band take their stance toward social media and its impact on society and the younger generations inclination to become ‘famous’ by doing embarrassing things to gain infamy on any and all forms of media. OCEANS shut that down at the core with a heartfelt and emotionally charged track. You can’t even judge it based on a track-by-track performance as the album as a whole is a cohesive slab of faultless genre-fusing mayhem. And it fits incredibly beautifully because there is nothing like it.
OCEANS aren’t ones to shy away from dealing with fragile topics within their lyrics and across the 11 tracks they force you to listen to not only the lyrical aspect, but also the uncomfortable vocals as Rotten sounds like a feral witch at times in comparison to his cleans where he could fit into any metalcore band, but it wouldn’t feel the same. He belongs in OCEANS with the rest of the band as everyone plays an uncompromising role in the madness of Happy. If you’re in need of an album to cleanse you, or if you’re just angry, Happy is the one for you. One warning may be to check the contents of the album first, because as the band state themselves, it’s ‘music for depressed people’; the other is that you should listen at your own risk as OCEANS aren’t liable for what your neck will endure.
Rating: 9/10
Happy is set for release on September 27th via Nuclear Blast Records.
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