High Tides

Ocean of Illusions hold a strange niche in the New Jersey metal/metalcore scene. Their style is best summarized as a complete synthesis of 2008-2010 deathcore, like After the Burial, Born of Osiris, Veil of Maya and Carnifex, with progressive and brutal death metal from the 00s to present - Necrophagist, The Faceless, and some djenty rhythmic irregularities. Amidst a trend of tuning lower and lower, "Oceans" stand out. They have found an interesting group around this stranger niche in the Jersey scene, where they are finding appreciation for the mix of progressive/brutal death metal and deathcore brought to fruition with outstanding production on their debut album, High Tides.

Let's take a second to look at the production. Producer Eric DiCarlo pushed his production to bring out the best of Ocean of Illusions' bombastically loud and stompy style, and High Tides sounds basically perfect for a modern death metal album. The guitars sound massive, crushing yet completely clear. The album is somewhat bass heavy, but this only empowers the explosions and collapses that Oceans' music is based around. The double-bass drumming will shake the mirrors in your car, rest assured.

In their music, Ocean of Illusions embrace the inherently fun aspects of their family of deathcore/death metal, yet keep an aggressive and at times dark edge. There is certainly a plenitude of breakdowns, but these guys do it notably well. The balance of fast brutal death metal with stompy-breakdown-deathcore creates a really extreme contrast of fast to slow, which is consistently satisfying. This may sound inherently formulaic, but Ocean of Illusions largely avoid being predictable in their songwriting, partly by bringing in hints of eclectic outside-metal influences - notably, various electronic styles - into their very metal music.

Opener "Into the Abyss," as an example, is a bombardment of riffs, each feeling more aggressive and evil than the last until a final collapse. While the riffs in live staple "Death of a Siren" don't exactly break any chord progression boundaries, Ocean of Illusions weave their powerful control of dynamic release through strong songwriting. Although Ocean of Illusions themselves do not really resemble black metal or (even less) post-rock, their ability to build up on one idea, adding evil nuances to add to impending dynamic explosions, does feel a bit like the songwriting mentality of black metal and post rock/metal songwriter greats. This is heard in tracks like "Upon the Shore," perhaps the most 'epic' feeling track on the album, wherein frantic death metal riffs interchange with a satisfying, explosive chorus until a final collapse that weaves between nuances on top of a very simple Earth-crumbling breakdown rhythm.

Ocean of Illusions show fantastic potential on High Tides. This debut LP shows sincere musicianship, at times hidden through surprisingly intricate songwriting, and speaks worlds to the production skills of DiCarlo. It will be interesting to see where Ocean of Illusions take their massive sound in future works.