Oceansize

If you're gonna do something, do it properly. Look at Elefant for example. Another, pretty, pretty non-descript NYC outfit all suited up and nasally rhyming it as if they're The Strokes doing Brian Molko karaoke. It's modern day indie in its purest form, but amidst all the plagiarising - which extends from Joy Division, in the flat, dark melodies, to faithful old Mansun in the guitars and rhythmic arrangements - there's little to take home and show mummy. Elefant are good enough, but no one would give half a shit they weren't from New York and managed by the bloke that does Interpol. No classic songs afoot then, but odds on they're shagging fit birds every night of the week and probably have a lucrative record deal lined up. Long live our strictly meritous rock n roll industry, eh?

With Oceansize, one couldn't have a more opposite approach. For starters, they wouldn't know what a suit was if it came all over their #2 all over haircuts. The exception is frontman Michael Vennart, who vibrates and contorts like a member of Sum 41, all wide mouthed and spikey haired. The other four members could work in JJB Sports for all the starness they exude. We'll forgive them though, for when they plug in, tune up and cop off with vast, galaxy scaling feedback, we're witness to the most musically together set of the year.

Make no mistake, Oceansize don't have and don't pretend to have songs. Instead, they concentrate on scoring swarming great torrents of glorious noise like Tool or indie stalwarts, Mogwai. It's something they do with such vivid beauty and impeccable aptitude that it breaks free from the shackles of their overproduced record, its intensity drawing you in throughout.

Sadly, vocals seem an unnecessary addendum for most of it, drowned as they are beneath the music and lacking any discernably 'beautiful' melodies, to match those of the guitars. Vennart has a decent enough 'rock' voice, but it's quite unextraordinary, lacking prominence or individuality. Oceansize thus concentrate on pushing the intensity distort pedal down as far as it goes, and - as the Elefant bloke sings earlier on in that most Brett Anderson of ways - their live show really does take you 'ovahh'.

There's many a moment of hair raising, jaw widening magic consistently bobbing amid the wild and eloquent guitar streams. You'd be hard pressed to pick older tracks like 'Amputee' apart from much of their other material, but what is notable is that despite having three guitarists, at no point do they get in each other's way, sonically or otherwise. Every aspect of everything they do is measured beyond all belief. Oceansize are much more a 'musicians' band' than any of their contemporaries, and put everyone, save Muse and The Boxer Rebellion, laughably to shame with their playing.

Whilst genre-defining influences like Tool only found this kind of sound after many years doing more conventional rock, and the likes of The Verve evolved their psychedelic jam mentality the other way into radio rock, Oceansize would do well to find a happy medium between all of this. The possibilities, should they choose to refine their sound with a more direct and memorable upper-layer are unimpounded. The potential, as they say, is huge and depends solely upon whether they want to do it properly or not.