The Ocean:

‘Well how about if we let a band with eight people in it open up? Well that sounds like fun!’ And so it was booked, The Ocean, with their Cult of Luna/Burst like songs were crammed up on stage in an attempt to enchant us. Unfortunately I seemed to be immune for this, because I didn’t feel overwhelmed at all. I got the feeling like almost everything they played was either too fast to be really nice postcore or to slow to get those The Dillinger Escape Plan fiddles across in a chaotic, disorderly way. With a, to me, completely unnecessary percussionist and a monotonous sampler which also participated in the screaming vocals, a pretty nice but yet rapidly boring show was put on. Too bad.

 

 

I guess the correct description for this is some kind of heavy metalcore. I heard someone say screamo, but this dude didn’t possess such a high pitched voice and his clean singing abilities weren’t something to write a lot about in this article, either. 

Nevertheless I still quite enjoyed their show, they had a nice brutal sound and there were some occasional riffs that I could get into. I recall a very slow track that I found very appealing, that was a great break from all the faster songs. Worth mentioning was the fact that one of the guitar players was seated in a wheelchair, I believe that is the first time I saw something like that. Nice show, from a perhaps very promising band.

 

 

To answer my question in the intro for this review in short; yes, they very well are. Never, and I mean NEVER, have I seen such expertise in rhythm emerge from this country. I mean there are quite some tight and fast bands that are very good, but this band is at a lonely altitude. A flawless show was delivered to us very enthusiastically as if it was nothing. And all I could do was watch and cry about it.

They played a mixture of old and new songs, both very impressing but yet a distinct difference in skill can be heard if you ask me, the new shit’s even better than the old. And then this vocalist: Jezus Christ, is there anything this guy can’t do? He can sing, he can scream, he can scream even dirtier and he can grunt like a maniac. Fucking awesome.

But I don’t want to bore you all with yet another story on how great this band is, all I want to do is convince you guys of something. Since most readers of this review will be Dutch too I want to recruit you all to do something. Go out, buy this killer album, visit a fucking show and buy a t-shirt or something! We are honoured to be in the presence of our metal salvation, now go and help them make it happen! If anyone in this country ever deserved it, it’s these guys!

A bit frustrating is the fact that any Dutch metal band will lose all confidence after seeing a Textures show, this shit is too good! Don’t believe me? Go see one of the shows with Gojira next month, which is also one of those bands which makes your jaw drop to the ground. So here you go: two more than brilliant bands in one evening; be there or die.