Hailing from Ontario, As Oceans Divide is comprised of members from other established bands from the city yearning to bring back the early 2000s core sounds that bands like Killswitch Engage and Hatebreed pioneered to global stardom.
Their self-titled debut EP is nothing short of ruthless and to the point. Five songs that span almost 20 minutes intertwining between heavy riffs, melodic choruses and controlled chaos seems par for the course these days, and while As Oceans Divide to take you back to a time when summers were longer and the skies were clearer, they’ve also made the sound their own with tweaks here and there.
The band open with ‘Into the Dying Light’, the abrasive drums and dazzling guitar tones are the star of the show across the EP. The screams of vocalist Tom Emmans are thunderous, but his cleans are somewhat buried under the instrumentals, an issue that spans the full EP. Although he seems to get clearer toward the bottom end this issue spreads throughout the EP, you can hear him, but he’s muffled, like he recorded his cleans behind a padded door.
Vocal inconsistencies aside, the band are on point. Riffs aplenty, pounding drums and songwriting that knows exactly when to end. The longest track here is the galloping ‘Cursed Oblivion’, and that clocks in at just under 4 minutes itself. If you come into As Oceans Divide looking for anything groundbreaking, you’ll leave with disappointment. It’s a throwback to the boots-on-the-ground metalcore rising of the early 2000s. It’s not mind blowing, it’s just good catchy metalcore. And there’s nothing wrong with that in the slightest. Every band starts from somewhere, and perhaps this is just the start, and we’re waiting for the flower to bloom fully.