Oceano – Contagion (Earache Records)

Wednesday, 20th March 2013
Rating: 4.5/10

Oceano is such a predictable band and Contagion came across as such an obvious-sounding record, that Blistering debated on not even listening to the album at all prior to reviewing it (blast you, promotional beeps!). But since we are of the ethical and fair nature (we think), Contagion got its fair share of spins and sure enough, it sounded exactly like it was envisioned, which in essence, is utter garbage.

Deathcore effectively ran its course back in 2005 with Despised Icon’s The Healing Process, so it’s no surprise that both DI vocalists (Alexandre Erian and Steve Marois) appear on “Viral Re-Animation,” a song that is more redeeming for its chugs than the dual vocals. Speaking of vocals, Adam Warren does have a ferocious bark to him, except for the fact he gets one-dimensional at the drop of the hat. Granted, he’s given the same beatdown to sing over time and time again, so one can’t totally fault the dude for not knowing what to do.

At 11 songs, Oceano faces the quandary of trying to keep things interesting once beyond “Quarantine,” a song that does have a nice Nile circa 2002 drawl to it. “The Contaminated” starts promising and so does “Persuasive Oppression,” but the ideas here are so limited that one could interchange the songs and maybe no one outside of the band (and you scenesters!) would notice. The only real detour here is the all-instrumental “Exist In Confinement,” which manages to sneak in a few sideways melodies for good measure, although doing anything remotely melodic in this realm is so not happening.

If you were to put a picture of any band next to the word “Deathcore” in the dictionary, it would be Oceano. Of course, if that actually happened, then we’d be at the brink of extinction, kinda like the plot to the band’s video for “Weaponized” where a deranged man blows up the world. With any luck, all existing copies (physical and digital) of Contagion were in that explosion.

www.myspace.com/oceano

(This content originally appeared on Blistering.com)

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