Album Rating: 5.0

It is incredible. Actually haven't listened for week. Going to change that today

Album Rating: 5.0

In an argument with myself about which is the better closer between The Frame and Ornament.

Album Rating: 5.0

Sleeping dogs is one of the best songs ever made.

Album Rating: 5.0

I'd say The Frame is a smidge better but Effloresce and Everyone Into Position are pretty much flawless albums too

Album Rating: 5.0

Listened to both again today and I think they are quite even.

Album Rating: 5.0

Old Friend followed by Sleeping Dogs is basically cheating

Album Rating: 5.0

How so?

Album Rating: 5.0

So fucking good!

Album Rating: 5.0

Btw your avatar - isn't that the guy that Tool loved and featured on Third Eye? Forgot his name

Album Rating: 5.0

Bill Hicks.

Probably the only hot take I have for this beyond Only Twin being a top highlight, but I wish I liked Sleeping Dogs as much as everything else :[
The Frame is lovely, but cmon Ornament is *the* Oceansize closer

Album Rating: 5.0

Only twin is the only Song i skip tbh

A 6.5/10 song on an 11/10 album

Album Rating: 5.0

Song is 10/10

Album Rating: 5.0

it seriously isn't though

Hmm
A high proportion of this could quite reasonably be criticised for conservatism in the way its structures are largely driven by max/min dynamics - even Trail Of Fire (which I think most including me would agree is the best track here) is basically built around filling the spaces before and after two crescendoes in with intricate detail
I like Oceansize as a linear band (and in their stuff that hardly demands any structure at all, like Women Who Love Men and Rinsed), but I think a huge part of what made them so special is the way they were able to exist ~around these structures or bend em to their strengths. Unfamiliar is a neat example - feels like about 3 different postrock songs unfolding as one tearaway ROCK song - and I guess Sleeping Lion's sheer heaviness is cool in that it gives the parts that would normally feel like structural 'peaks' (chorus, final bridge) more of a breather/salve quality,
but.
Only Twin is the exception that proves all the rules as far as Oceansize go. It's such a huge departure from their usual stuff, but it gets there by making really smart use of the same toolkit - the rhythms aren't just inventive beats, they're a disorienting labyrinth, and their post-rock ready suspense and tension are front and centre, only they're not turning into something grander, they're collapsing in on themselves. It has as much heart as any of their greats - it's so emotionally charged that it doesn't feel like a prog indulgence - and it hits one of the most obvious Climaxes on the album, but the build-up is so chaotic that it's basically only possible to even call it that retrospectively, and when it does peak the tone is pure time-expanding moment-of-anxiety doom in stark contrast to the breathtaking elated shit the band almost always go for otherwise. Relative to Oceansize, that's genius to me. There's nothing else quite like it in their discog (Massive Bereavement is probs most comparable, and another career highlight for mostly similar reasons), and looking at it at a time where I'd naturally have moved on from this band long ago if it weren't for very good distinct reasons, I respect their tamer stuff a whole lot more having heard just how far out they can take the same elements of craft on that track
By the same token, there's a load of reasons I could see people not vibing with it, which is good and cool and fair - but I'm automatically suspicious of declaring anything the weakest thing in its cohort if it's also the part that goes most stridently into a contrasting direction

On a long train journey AMA

Only 8 songs, and yet the album is over an hour in length? My god, it's the exact type of thing which will detract all of those little kids who listen to mainstream music. But, that is not a bad thing, is it? For their most recent release, Oceansize crafted only 8 songs, each involving a lot of meticulous work and thinking. Every song on this album belongs and blends into the next, touching on so many styles while still being a cohesive, tight, and powerful journey.

This band tries way too hard to be Yellowcard 2.0

Album Rating: 5.0

@benkimSee, I think drugs have done some good things for us, I really do. And if you don't believe drugs have done good things for us, do me a favor - go home tonight and take all your albums, all your tapes, and all your CDs and burn 'em. 'Cause you know what? The musicians who've made all that great music that's enhanced your lives throughout the years... real fucking high on drugs.

Album Rating: 5.0

It's not a war on drugs, it's a war on personal freedom.