OCEANO PROVE THAT DEATHCORE HAS DEPTHS
Monday, October 12th, 2009 at 1:30pm by Gary Suarez
Philosopher and academic Paul Hegarty began his 2007 tome Noise/Music: A History with the following description: “Noise is not an objective fact. It occurs in relation to perception–both direct (sensory) and according to presumptions made by an individual… Whether noise is happening or not will depend on the source of what is being called noise–who the producer is, when and where, and how it impinges on the perceiver of noise.” Such a definition is necessary in order to reasonably assess Chicago-based deathcore act Oceano.
While heavy metal has previously been appropriated–and, arguably, misappropriated–by artistic outsiders with agendas and ideologies, alongside nostalgic or even fetishistic sentiments, deathcore is a rare internal and naturally occurring movement that adopts the typically academic precepts of noise music inadvertently and almost entirely by chance. Indeed, as a subgenre, it is intolerable to most self-described heavy metal fans. It is safe to posit, given the lineup’s youth (at least one member is apparently still below the legal drinking age), that Oceano (and their deathcore ilk) are wholly unaware of and uninitiated in the legacy of noise that came before them, beginning with the Futurists and Dadaists of the early 20th century, continuing with the Fluxus artists of the 1960s and the avant-jazz musicians of the 1970s, and ultimately exploding worldwide in the latter fifth of the 1900s with performers like Merzbow and Lustmord paving the way for today’s stars like Christian Fennesz and Stephen O’Malley. It is a testament to Oceano that a manifestation of their talent for noise emerges even as they genuinely attempted to write an album’s worth of listenable heavy metal songs.
Frontman Adam Warren honors the vocal tradition of Yoko Ono (a participant in Fluxus even prior to her marriage and music with John Lennon) as much as he does Chuck Schuldiner. On “Slaughtered Like Swine,” Warren reproduces a stunning approximation of a porcine squeal. “Empathy For Leviathan” ostensibly mines the pelagic and oceanographic themes suggested by the band’s name and album title, though its lyrics are so inscrutably delivered that they could have very well been recorded underwater. Tracks like “With Legions” and “Samael The Destroyer” involuntarily lampoon heavy metal conventions with gratuitous noodling and tempo shifts, the latter of these permitting Jason Jones a three second bass solo. Oceano sound their best on “District Of Misery,” where the cacophony rarely lets up over its three minute duration. Here, bestial braying, irritatingly ticking drums, and insufferable low-end dominate, ending with the sound of an exploding septic system.
My sole, albeit minor criticism of the otherwise irreproachable Depths pertains to its six-and-a-half minute long title track. This melodiously repetitive, comparably exoteric diversion–perhaps an unconscious nod to the early looping experiments of Pierre Henry or Karlheinz Stockhausen– both well meaning though ill-advised and should be chalked up to the occasionally misguided ambitions of youth. I won’t posture as a seasoned deathcore aficionado, and I’d postulate that some of the more experienced fans of the subgenre may be disinclined to agree with my ebullient assessment of Oceano, perhaps favoring antecedants such as Suicide Silence and Whitechapel. Even still, Oceano’s Depths delivers on the promise of its title and offers an immersing aural experience for fans of La Monte Young and Job For A Cowboy alike.
In his aforementioned book, Professor Hegarty not only chronicled the role of noise in 20th and 21st century sound but also adumbrated a “future culture” based in some measure upon it. Going forward, I cannot possibly any credibly anthropological survey of such a culture without reference to Oceano, the undoubtedly reluctant new aesthetic leaders of noise.
(5 out of 5 horns)
-GS
[Gary Suarez is serious. He usually manages the consistently off-topic No Yoko No. Say, why don't you follow him on Twitter?]
ok….
its because the singers blak
No he’s not, he’s clearly using shoe polish.
Here… a +1 for you!
That was one of the best reviews I’ve ever read.
thats how he gets you.
its because the singers blacke
He did get me! I am now a huge Gary Suarez fan!
its cause the singers black
You got the right spelling of “black” on the third try. Congratulations !
+1
I’m going to stab you in your temple while you sleep.
I wasn’t allowed to double post so therefore i chose to do some “ghetto spell”.
You fucking cuntface.
I love being hated by morons, it makes me feel smart.
Never thought i’d hear anyone on metalsucks praising Oceano, though I always thought they stood out among the deathcore trend.
TROLL
Update: apparently a lot of commenters here don’t quite get it…
heh yeah honestly.
singers black… did ya know?
Jesus lord, it looks like a thesaurus exploded. I love this review.
And did I see both Merzbow and Lustmord mentioned?
Gary, you may catch a lot of shit but that’s awesome.
Also, forgot to add that this is way more hardcore than Oceano
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbBBczzDeCA
Any review that compares a vocal style to Yoko Ono cannot in any universe garner a 5/5 rating.
It can when the reviewer is being sarcastic.
The review was extremely well written, however I believe I remember this site bashed Oceano on a number of occasions prior to this. In fact, I would go as far as to say MetalSucks writers have stated that they really, really, really don’t like this band. A perfect album review (for a mediocre album, in my opinion) was a HUGE surprise. I remember something very similar happening with Winds Of Plague, a band that was periodically demolished via blog post, but then received a solid review for a less than solid album.
… How the fuck do you people not get the joke?
People are so fucking dumb…
Loved that review! Dont you just enjoy when you get a joke and a world of dickheads and morons dont? I know i do!
All joking aside, you’d have to be a fucking idiot to think it was well-written.
Hang on, hang on, I need to get some paper towels. The sarcasm has spilled out of my screen and all over my desk. Thanks a lot Suarez.
Gary, bravo. This is one of the finest pieces of extended bullshittery I’ve ever read. Seriously — this is some next level irony. You should write for The Believer.
Take it easy with the over-dramatic grammar Suarez. Damn, who are you trying to impress.
The bitches, dumbass.
great review but seriously? 5/5? I’m sick.
I’m pretty sure it’s meant to be sarcastic.
its because the singers black
Wow, the review was honest, insightful, creative, and extremely well written. It is, however, quite perplexing to see a generic band like Oceano receive 5/5 horns.
It’s because the singer’s black.
Yeah, I’m losing my faith in Metalsucks and the metal community as a whole piece by piece when a fucking deathcore CD gets a 5/5. Breakdowns should be a minus 3 for fucks sake.
You are an disgrace to the name of Nate.
THIS
IS
OBVIOUSLY
A
JOKE.
Goddamn. READ FUCKIN ROSENBLOOM’S COMMENT TWO INCHES ABOVE YOURS FOR GODSAKES.
Your IQ is probably a “minus 3″ anyway, so I really shouldn’t bother explaining this to you…
Really? You think i’m THAT dumb?
Dude, I too was being sarcastic, I read all the fucking comments above me, I just thought it would be funny to bitch about it, adding to the confusion and mass-hysteria stupidity of others.
Nice spelling error on your sentence claiming I’m a disgrace to a… name…
But thanks for trying and failing.
Really ? you were trying some form of meta-sarcasm ? Funny, it looks a lot like you didn’t get the sarcasm when you wrote your first comment and then tried pathetically to make believe that you were being sarcastic about the sarcasm, but maybe it’s because I got lost on the sixth level of sarcasm or something.
you, my friend, are a fucking retard.
I had to check my calendar to make sure it wasn’t April 1st.
And just for the sake of objectivity, because I’ve never heard any Oceano before, I checked out their video on Youtube, and not only was the music mediocre deathcore, one of their guitarists (or maybe he’s the bassist, I’m not sure) was employing the Attack Attack! Signature Crab Crouch™, which further made me dislike them.
Well played, sir.
I’m not sure if this review is indeed sarcasm or if the comments claiming sarcasm are the actual sarcasm. However, I will say that sarcasm and verbosity rarely mix.
JFAC in just intonation? Suarez, did you cut n’ paste an Oxbow review?
My goodness… That was great sarcasm, really, i was fooled up to the 5 stars review, where i understood the brilliant strategy. Great way to bash on a mediocre band, sarcasm is the best hammer, ever.
i give this review a 5/5
Finally someone agrees with me.
I totally dig Oceano :-)
i like ‘em too, but not 5/5 like ‘em
I would say 3/5, I know Gary feels that they dont even deserve a 1. In some aspects I can see how people agree, but obviously someone likes them enough to give them a nice record deal and to put them on some pretty bad ass tours. Good for them I think. Whatever pays there bills I suppose…
It is quite funny to me that people still dont understand the definition of sarcastic though lolz
You know who else people like enough to give a record deal? Kanye West. Go DIAF you stupid deathcore piece of shit. “They must be good because they got signed.” Really, that’s your argument? Go look up the meaning of the word TRENDY then try and justify their existence afterwards.
Sorry to break it to you, but read around the comments section a bit…
Seriously? 5/5? Really? Ewww
Guys who are mad about the rating…..
Gary is sooooo obviously being sarcastic. So really this album is probably a 1.
Im…so thrown off by this. I dont know if its serious. I want it to be serious cause i like them, i dont want it to be serious because its a fucking 5/5…Opeth got a 4.5 on…who cares what record, i cant remember but its OPETH, cmon. But…Oceano?….What? Ive been literally walking around campus thinking about this all day.
All day????
Are there people here who did not automatically register this thing as sarcastic-as-fuck?
Yeeeaaahhh… you may not make it through college.
Well youre right about that.
I love how this band has been kicked from MA recently.
Haha, I know! I gave the album a 6%, and was pleased to hear that the band had been removed.
hey, before the majority of you crawl out of the “sarchasm”, would one of you mind grabbing me an ironic souvenir t-shirt?
I see what you did there.
Ziltoid…eat your motherfuckin heart out
humm… Where do you see Ziltoid?
As in “This is the way sarcasm is meant to be written”
Also, there is no problem with the way mine way written. I happen to prefer the verbosity of this to the language used in mine, but I also like how mine turned out as well.
I didn’t much care for the way yours way written. But if you enjoyed it, well that’s all that matters!
I still say George Will like verbosity and good sarcasm are bad bedfellows, generally speaking (there are exceptions – this not being one).
I was being sarcastic when I wrote that, obviously it went right over your head Samantha.
…or WAS I?
Touche
Haha, I lol’d BIG TIME while reading. This is some excellent writing. Suarez needs to write more pieces like this. Hell, this whole site should focus on more humor like this.
I think Ziltoid and Gary are the same person !
Never checking this website ever again.
Is your sarcasm detector broken?
Truly impressing trolling. I’m envious. Nicely done!
You’d think that after my piece on here, people would be better at noticing satirical writing. I mean, some commenters are getting it, but it’s disturbing that some still aren’t.
Whoops, Sorry Arthur. That was meant to be a post of my own and not a comment on yours.
Bleh, damn the internet!
lol I was about to tell you “Nice Picture” and then I saw it was you. Very nice. I love Metazoa and the artwork is really beautiful. It’s the background on my computer.
“A Mandatory Sacrifice” was OK but it didn’t have anything memorable in it.
“District Of Misery” is terrible.
Job For A Cowboy and Suicide Silence are better.
Suicide Silence would be my deathcore (if you HAVE to label music) band that I favor.
And that this album got more then a 3/5 from metalsucks is VERY surprising.
Someone didn’t get it
Troll of the year
If you don’t get that this is a joke, your’e either retarded or have never heard Oceano.
This is great stuff, surpassing Sgt.D in hilarious parody that confuses dumb metal fans who can’t recognize a joke.
It probably also helps to have an opinion about the band in the first place to see the sarcasm. I don’t.
im gona throw up this is the worst band ive heard since emmure
you can just call Oceano “Blackchapel” if it makes things easier.
lol wut
hmm never heard them before, probably won’t listen to them again, sound like a shit version of the acacia strain. Death to deathcore?
I AGREE OCEANO IS THE SHIT
or
I CANT BELIEVE METALSUCKS GAVE OCEANO A 5/5 FUCK THIS WEBSITE IM NEVER COMING BACK
There, I think that should about cover everything for you sarcasm-deficient fucks out there.
Gary Suarez, will you marry me?
This is like reading a review on pitchfork… An overly wordy review of a record I’ll never buy. At least this was tongue in cheek.
God I love sarcasm
I love sarcasm as well. This review, however, was just annoying.
Hmph. Very good piece of sarcasm from Mr. Suarez here.
Though I found the Teufel’s Tomb review of this record to be far funnier.
The first line was sarcastic, by the way.
Seriously, I think Suarez tried too hard. It came off as uninteresting and too long, with references to unrelated crap everywhere.
It’s all fun and games…until Oceano sells copies because of this review.
Gravy!
Blackchapel
That was painful to even attempt to read. Sarcasm and the internet, still incompatible after all these years.
Hey, check it out! I found Oceano’s lyrics for the entire album!
EEEEEYYYYOOOOUUUUUUU…..
RREEERRREEERREEEE….
YYAAAAAAHHHH…..
GGGREEEE……
FFRRRAAAA…..
IIIIIHHHHIIIIHHIIIIIII…..
(Copyright: 2009 Earache Records)
Who else has had the displeasure of seeing these chaps live?
I honestly thought their set was one big song. It was that monotonous.
Anyway it took me up until the Yoko Ono comment to realize this review was a joke. Bravo Mr. Suarez, I have been trolled.
Hahaha!! Excellent review!
The kids in Oceano are so dumb that they’ll probably pull quotes from it and put it in their advertisements.
And to the people who actually think this is a serious review … you must be new here.
check the oceano myspace right now, your prophecy came true
I love thus review so much, I want to take it out back and get it pregnant!
*this
curse you, iPhone keyboard!
Thanks to this review, stupid 15 year olds will take this review seriously and will start buying albums. And so their mallcore era begins…
thus this site was bribed
Gary, I love you so much right now you have no idea.
You know you just talked a few people into buying this, right?
Never heard Oceano and I have no idea as to the seriousness of this review but may I point out that if I were to base my opinions on what Metal Sucks has to say then I would go around thinking that this year Killswitch Engage have released a better album than Lamb Of God.
MASTER TROLL
Thanks for nothing, Suarez. I had a bet going that this would be the worst reviewed album of all time, and now I lost on a technicality. The grand prize was never having to hear Whitechapel again.
I want your babies, Gary.
HEY GARY! Next time you want to write some bullshit taking up that much space, at least run it through SPELLCHECK!
Corey’s Two Word Review of Gary Suarez’s Oceano Album Review:
>Onion
man i’m glad i read the review, i might have ended up like lots of people on here just seeing 5/5 and flippin a shit. this is why gary suarez is on staff
You know these retards will take some of this as a serious inclusion to the band’s presskit…
When is it going to be okay to like music just for the sake of liking the sound of it again?
I have never heard one song of Oceano’s but I can tell you that as much as I may or may not hate them, I am sure I hate the people who post on this blog so much more.
Here’s a hint: Trashing a deathcore band just because its a deathcore band is just as bad as only listening to a genre like deathcore because its trendy or popular.
A person should not be held accountable for what moves them emotionally. For example, the furious blast beats of MARDUK, pumps me up the same way the breakdowns of The Acacia Strain gets my heart racing.
Whether one thinks of oneself as “core” or “kvlt”, one thing that conjoins both is the love of loud hard aggressive rebellious music and thats all that should matter.
People get so consumed by the lifestyle of their sub genres of metal that they idealize it the same way republicans and democrats, liberals and conservatives, idealize politics. THAT IS WRONG.
Because at the end of the day, music is just simply entertainment. Just something to take our minds off and release ourselves from the daily grind of living a life nothing like we imagined it.
So lets stop lieing to ourselves. Lets stop fooling ourselves into thinking our taste actually means something in comparison to others taste.
Taste does not exist.
I find hit hilarious that people argue about their taste in music. Music such a personal experience. Anyone who is swayed by a bunch of comments to a sarcastic article on the internet is probably willing to fall for anything. I’ll say it again. I like Oceano. I’ve also probably been listening to metal longer than most people posting in here have been alive.
brilliant. I’m going to have to pass this around.
ok, so i see the 5 horns rating, without reading the review I download the cd and give it a listen… i couldn’t even get through 3 songs.. I thought for sure they got paid or something to give them a good review.. then i look at the comments, then read the review.. Good stuff.
“Oceano, the undoubtedly reluctant new aesthetic leaders of noise.”
I can’t believe that this wasn’t trolling… Gary got fired for this shit! It’s proof that Gary Suarez sucks!
major LOLage @ referencing Oceano as Blackchapel
I laughed for an hour over that.
I still say Gary was trolling.
You guys fired a dude who can write like that? Granted, this particular review will fly right over the skulls of those who might like the band, but hell – the dude makes for interesting reading.
agreed. this was the funniest review ever.
the fact that he made fun of them and they used to review to promote their video is hilarious lmao
Beat me over the head with a blast beat, why dontcha?
was this album even worth writing such a long review.their song district of misery sonds bit like acacia strain.they are definitly paid to write all this crap about crap.