Anyone who’s been following Oceano since 2009 debut Depths cannot have failed to notice that they’ve never managed to approach the heights of that landmark deathcore release.
It’s perhaps because of this that new release Ascendants is such a welcome surprise. While everything here is much improved, there’s no doubting that what makes it such a success after the relative disappointments of Contagion and Incision is that it finds the five-piece pushing again to stretch outside of the genre’s worn ‘chug, chug, breakdown’ traits – with touches, such as the discordant guitar work behind tracks such as The World Engine, elevating what can still at times be a bit of a repetitive affair.
While still not in the same league as that initial calling card, Ascendants may just be the album that starts Oceano back on the path to former glories./o:p
