Being As An Ocean made quite a name for themselves after the release of Dear G-D in 2012. There was a moment in time when I had only heard about this band; after dominating my Tumblr dashboard for a few months, though, I finally took the time to listen to them. With all of the emotion and really well-written music, I was immediately hooked and just I couldn’t get enough of this band.
The new album, How We Both Wondrously Perish, opens with “Mediocre Shakespeare,” which starts off with a very familiar sound until about midway through. I was surprised by the clean vocals, as they aren’t your ordinary post-hardcore, auto-tuned cleans; they actually sound very good, and I can’t see that the cleans will ruin this album for many people. A few tracks later, we come to the title track, which is actually an interlude, with drums being the only instrument featured on it. It immediately merges into “The Poets Cry for More,” which starts off as mostly a spoken-word track, but we are soon welcomed by the rest of the band.
About midway through the album, I started to realize that there is a lot of variation on this record and every aspect of the band’s sound has improved notably since Dear G-D. I really can’t even pick a favourite song on How We Both Wondrously Perish because it’s great all the way through. I also have a hard time taking it off repeat. That being said, one of the most interesting songs on this record is “Mothers.” It’s one of the slower and more emotional tracks, but it also brings in a trumpet, which carries off the track from the middle marker. I was not expecting anything like this, and I was surprised at how well it merged with the music being played.
How We Both Wondrously Perish is the perfect follow-up release to Dear G-D and it’s sure to be an earworm for fans of the band and this genre of music. Being As An Ocean has improved on everything with this record. There isn’t any cheesy metalcore chugging to make for a ballad, and the album brings it all from spoken word to melodic and post-hardcore. I can not think of another album this year that I have enjoyed nearly as much.
