Review Summary: "Let no bad happen"
Self-titling an album can say a few things about a band's intent. It could stand as the perfect incarnation of a sound they've refined for years, or it could mark the beginning of an entirely new era for the artist. In Being As An Ocean's case, I suspected it might be the moment they reconcile the contrasting sounds of their previous albums. Lead single "Little Richie" solidified that distant hope. It was everything I wanted, and everything I hoped for. The aggression of
Dear G-d was back in a different, but exciting, way, the electronic leanings of
How We Both Wondrously Perish were integrated more subtly, and lyrically Joel Q has never been more on point. The final product, however, reveals something less than my expectations, yet still as close as the band has ever been.
Compared to either of the band's previous albums, Being As An Ocean proves to be a different beast altogether. Ironically, the same could be said comparing
How We Both Wondrously Perish to
Dear G-d before it. It's clear that Being As An Ocean aren't content to stay the course with their music, and album number three is just another peg on the ladder. With their third outing, the band tackles a sound less akin to the melodic hardcore of their origin, and more influenced by modern post-hardcore. While the music is more tightly structured now, it allows clean vocalist Michael McGough (The Elijah alumni) to flourish like never before. His performance on
How We Both Wondrously Perish was an excellent addition, but he truly comes into his own here with an absolutely astounding vocal range and more confident hooks. Despite his expanded range, the vocal performance has thinned in terms of variation. Joel Q deigns to leave the clean singing wholly to his bandmate, and sticks to screaming at the top of his lungs for the majority of the run-time. His divisive spoken word passages still crop up often enough, but they don't dominate like they did on
How We Both Wondrously Perish.
Musically, Being As An Ocean have never sounded darker. The band have always been built around the concept of hope and forgiveness, a by-product of their christian philosophy, but the self titled doesn't sound as positive and worshiping as
How We Both Wondrously Perish in a good way. Just glancing at the lyrics tells a revealing tale on why this is so. "Little Richie" and "Ain't Nobody Perfect" tell an adjoining and captivating story. In the former it centers around the effect a father domestically abusing his wife has on their child. The chorus in particularly is extremely emotional and touching as McGough sings:
How can you say this time that it will be alright, how can you still look in his eyes and see the love of your life?
The latter track brings the concept further with the child, now a young man, as he finally confronts his father and reveals the resentment he's held in for years to the man that caused it. As Being As An Ocean has always preached that the path to goodness and love is forgiveness, so does the wronged man forgive his sire. While the album's body tracks don't seem to continue the story (not absenting the possibility that the story simply lives on more deeply entwined and hidden in the lyrics) it does come back with the ending songs in the darkest of ways...the murder of a child by a father irreparably damaged in his own youth. The story, for all the troubling subject manner, succeeds in driving home many of the band's beliefs in a way they never could before.
Musically, Being As An Ocean has found a cohesion that allows their music to flourish. Previous releases had a tremendous amount of variation and it was a good bit of their charm. However, such wanton experimentation has been known to catch up to bands before, and it's a comforting sign that the band has managed to streamline their sound this early in their career. An interesting detail to note is that most, if not all, of the album highlights are located at the beginning and rear of the album. The opening four track run is some of the best the band has accomplished and the final three are just as powerful. The body tracks aren't weak by any means, simply overshadowed slightly. The spoken word pieces of "St. Peter" fall short of the atmospheric guitar leads of "Little Richie" and the almost alternative rock opening to "Ain't Nobody Perfect", but not catastrophically.
Being As An Ocean's darker and more tightly constructed sound suits them just as much as the sounds of their past two records did, just in different ways. Every track has something good and new to offer, and the album as a whole absolutely shines. It may not be the perfect incarnation of their sound I hoped for, not yet, but it just might set them on the right path to that goal.
