Oceansize - Manchester Hop & Grape - 3/2/02
5/5
By: Spencer McCloud
Tonight's venue may only be half full by the time Oceansize take the stage, but the hundred and fifty or so people present - actually here to witness The Cooper Temple Clause and Easyworld - know they've seen something special happen right before their eyes.
Whilst Oceansize look like they could be the Cooper Temple's roadies, the sound they make far surpasses anything the headliners could ever hope to achieve. Oceansize deal in the most beautiful, intricate builds and the most gloriously ear-shredding waves of white noise you are likely to hear this side of Mogwai. The only thing is - this band are better than the Glaswegians.
Falsetto melodies float amongst the interweaving guitar-lines before bursting into deafeningly heavy riffs without any warning whatsoever. For this reason, Oceansize are everything you could want from a band. They are intense, heavy, exciting, yet they look so ordinary that they give you the hope that you could create something as sonically perfect as this... If my ears had bled tonight (and it felt like they were going to), it would have been the purest stigmata one could imagine.
So, if you've read this review and were wondering how the other bands lived up to Oceansize tonight, the short answer is: they didn't.
Photo-Credit: Tina McClelland
Artists in this article: Oceansize
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