NZMM Artist of the Day – Evil Ocean
Written by Admin on 12 May 2016
EVIL OCEAN – Sexual Selection
Evil Ocean are a badass band from Auckland.
They make marine metal.
Aquarius Records says about them:
So this band Evil Ocean, from Auckland, already has that going for them. But then add in the fact that they’re flat-out obsessed with music from another of our favorite locales, Finland, specifically what our friends in Circle like to call NWOFHM, and what do you get? A really, really awesome and unclassifiable album indeed. Krauty confusional garagey distorted DIY doom metal new wave soundtrack music? Maybe we can call it NWONZHM??
Apart from several interludes of eerie, abstract weirdness, the disc mostly consists of some fairly blown-out, rockin’ songs, which are ALSO weird as all heck though. These tracks are full of thick fuzz guitar, churning riffage riding the rinky-dink ticky-tock of the manic, machine-sounding percussion. Other ingredients include dramatic female vocals and gnarlier, sneering male vox (rising into a falsetto at times), plenty of effects and sci-fi synth sounds everywhere, tons o’ fuzz (we mentioned that already), spooky suspenseful bits, metallic gallop, industrial clank, seasick keyboards, and more… There’s ritualistic stuff that sounds like Sylvester Anfang, propulsive parts a la Circle, and heads-down Hawkwindy hypno-rock. The mood can get genuinely intense and disturbing, yet Evil Oceans also obviously display a bizarre, even nerdy sense of humor, heck there’s a track here called “Rise Of The Administration Daleks”, complete with hysterical Dalek voices… but also Spaghetti Western whistling… what does it all mean?? It’s art, or arty (several of the members are apparently successful painters) but most importantly it rocks in a quite entertaining WTF? fashion.
