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90% of the Earth’s oceanic floor is still uncharted, meaning most of our own planet is as alien to us as the rest of the universe. While spacerock typically conjures the vast openness of interstellar space, Brooklyn’s Oceanographer nods more to the unknown territory of the deep sea.
Spilling Blood is an album of waves. The songs gently ebb and flow with the tide, though the wind picks up at times and things get a bit choppy. “Hardest Thing To Say” opens with the dreamy calm of a silent ocean before “Lightning” picks up the pace, drawing us underwater to a whole new world of unexplored depths. The result is something like Secret Machines on a Spiritualized trip. Tracks seamlessly segue into one another – electronic pulses and echoes bring the individual tales together to tell one single grander story, which unfolds over the unpretentious, yet literary, heartfelt lyrics sung by vocalist Jeremy Yocum, whose voice perfectly compliments the atmospheric, oceanic rock that is so beautifully played by the band. The songs progress and we drift deeper into the sea, until we finally touch the sand with “All That I’m Good For,” and the journey is over. A new world within our own has been explored and if we never make it back, so be it. This place will do just fine.
It’s astounding that a band like Oceanographer should go relatively unnoticed while the labels consistently assault us with unlistenable garbage. It just proves how little they think of us consumers, that we have no taste or we’re not smart enough to get such dynamic music. Fine. I’ll turn up Spilling Blood and drown out all the crap they’re pushing as the next big thing as I slowly sink to the bottom of the ocean.
