-=- SHGZ -=-
* Shoegaze * Indie * Post-Rock * Grunge * Dream Pop * Psych-Rock * Ethereal *
ARTIST..: Ocean Alley
ALBUM...: Chiaroscuro
GENRE...: Psychedelic Rock
STYLE...: Neo-Psychedelia, Reggae, Funk Rock, Indie Rock
YEAR....: 2018
LABEL...: Unified
COUNTRY.: Australia
PLACE...: Sydney, NSW
FORMED..: 2010
ENCODER.: LAME 3.100 -V0
BITRATE.: 262 kbps avg
QUALITY.: 44.1kHz / Joint Stereo
SOURCE..: CD
TRACKS..: 12
SIZE....: 92.40 MB
URL..: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiaroscuro_(Ocean_Alley_album)
- TRACKLIST
1 Corduroy 3:15
2 The Comedown 4:46
3 Happy Sad 5:32
4 Confidence 4:16
5 Knees 4:48
6 Rage 4:14
7 She's Always Right 4:05
8 Frostbite 3:26
9 Overgrown 3:55
10 Bones 3:21
11 Flowers & Booze 4:05
12 Man You Were Looking For 3:26
Total Playtime: 49:09
Artist Background:
Ocean Alley is a 6-piece out of Australia that merges reggae and psychedelic
rock. The Sydney-based band typically balances back-and-forth between dreamy,
laid-back songs and dark, gloomy jams. Prior to the group's sophomore release
Chiaroscuro, Ocean Alley had racked up well-deserved hype from their debut
album Lost Tropics (2016) and two EPs Yellow Mellow (2013) and In Purple
(2015). The Aussie band carries their studio success on to the stage,
delivering chilling live performances night in and night out. Ocean Alley
makes their first trip to North America in spring 2018, performing at
California Roots Music & Arts Festival, then continuing a headlining tour
across the US and Canada.
Album Review:
At first glance Chiaroscuro, the title of Ocean Alley's sophomore album, may
seem like some bizarre, unpronounceable gibberish. Those who actually paid
attention in art class, may recognize chiaroscuro as an Italian term that
describes the interplay of light and dark, and its ability to create the
perception of depth. The title is fitting for an album that swivels
back-and-forth between songs of bubbly exuberance and bleak depression. Ocean
Alley has an uncanny ability of seesawing between dark and light, often times
within the same song.
Ocean Alley originally took their music in a darker direction on their
seriously impressive 2015 EP In Purple. However, their debut album Lost
Tropics (2016) underwhelmed as an entire collection of music, and proved the
band still had room to grow. Chiaroscuro feels exactly the opposite. The
12-track album showcases their breakthrough psych reggae rock sound, honed
songwriting skills, and their overall band cohesion.
Chiaroscuro begins with a dark, eerie and enchanting, one-minute guitar intro
on "Corduroy." Entering his hazy conscious, Baden Donegal (lead vocals/rhythm
guitar) sings, "Feels like we're floating...This is just a space town, soon
we gotta come down." Relying on an Ocean Alley signature, the song finishes
with a thunderous guitar solo, which leads into the appropriately named song
"The Comedown." The track perfectly encapsulates those hungover, next day
blues with its deliberately slack pace. "Happy Sad," a 5-minute hit from the
album, slowly builds itself up, before ending in a passionate outburst.
"Confidence," one of the lead singles off of Chiaroscuro, is almost comically
shallow in its lyricism. "It's all about confidence baby, she was a confident
lady, and I know she's driving me crazy," rhymes Donegal. But putting that
aside, "Confidence" has an inescapable catchiness. It's a song you simply
can't avoid coming back to.
A repetitive theme in Ocean Alley's lyrics is the idea of finding solitude.
On "Knees," Donegal sings, "Cuz' I'm only a man, and I think I need some time
to breathe." "Knees" is that track that you underestimate upon first listen,
but later come to realize its impassioned beauty. On "Overgrown," Donegal
pleads for his isolation once again, singing, "So please, let me be, on my
own, overgrown."
Chiaroscuro is rounded out by other top tracks like "Frostbite" and "Flowers
and Booze." The former stokes the imagination of a dark, psychedelic winter,
while the ladder is a rosy song that marks the most upbeat number on the
album. The only track I could never fully get behind was Chiaroscuro's closer
"Man You Were Looking For," a slow, acoustic ballad lacking the zest that
exists throughout the rest of the album.
Chiaroscuro exhibits the group's superb interplay with one another, and their
ability to convey themes of darkness in a genre often riddled with false
positivity and canned "good vibes" lyrics. Musically, Ocean Alley has created
a winning formula: fiery, heartfelt vocals, riveting guitar fills and solos,
reggae-inspired organs, and a top-class rhythm section. Chiaroscuro largely
maintains the reggae rock essence that they first came up on & if they expand
on the formula above, we could be watching the development of one of the next
major reggae rock bands around.
*
Crafted by Sydney 6-piece and Hottest 100 laureates Ocean Alley, Chiaroscuro
is a big, spacious record. 12 tracks arrive crammed full of hooks and loaded
with riffs. A radio-friendly rock sound with funk and reggae undercurrents.
'The Comedown' is the group's breakout single. It anchors the album. The
track courses with texture and musical colour.
It's not difficult to see how these crashing riffs bore this desolate
hangover epic into triple j's 100. "I'm so wasted," frontman Baden Donegal
sings. His lyrical style somewhere between vacant truism and universal
sentiment rendered to emotive breaking point.
But dialling back. It's 'Corduroy' which kicks things off. Angus Godwin's
'Breath (In the Air)' guitar licks accompany Baden's soulful growl. A mass of
spacious jams, the idyllic opener projects majestic rock into the back of the
skull.
"This is just a space town." Ocean Alley's lyrical simplicity could be - is -
the group's greatest asset. But there's times where it works against them.
Chiaroscuro veers into man-serenades-his-girl narratives which don't easily
sit within the hip lyrical parlance of 2018. Take 'She's Always Right'. Here,
the group take aim at that woman, the one that always has to be right! That
witch, darn her smart mouth. As for 'Man You Were Looking For', the title
holds a few hints.
These are time-tested themes. Musicians shouldn't be shafted for simply
refusing to be of their moment. But rather than a welcome break from the
present, these anachronisms can shake the listener out of the beguiling pull
'The Comedown' works so hard to create.
Yet even if Chia loses a few points here, it's still swinging with the same
vital energies as debut Lost Tropics. Strollers 'Happy Sad' and 'Confidence'
stray a little into cod funk, sure. But equally, they're laid-back party
breezers of the highest order. Alley play to their strengths with these
polished and easily catching songs.
Ocean Alley can be un-selfconsciously over the top, but they're no cartoon.
Chiaroscuro is what rock is supposed to be. The music of that radio station,
the one that's neither community nor triple j and just a flick of the dial
the other way. Classic rock, '80s smash hits, chill reggae and bluesy '70s
chops. Goldies, oldies and goodtime groovers. Instantaneous music you can
shake your head to.
Look at it this way. How many people do you think went out and laughed at
This Is Spinal Tap in 1984 and then bought one of the millions of Van Halen,
The Police or INXS albums which sold that self-same year? Rock is full of
contradiction. The greatest of which is, that for all its pretences of depth
and maturity, it's a universal simplicity that defines it.
Simplicity is these Northern Beachers' medium. Ocean Alley are laid back yet
flashy rockers. They're fun. You've got to have some guts to play that line
in '18 and more so than any other, they're an Australian outfit pulling it
off with finesse.
These six own clichΘs. People love it. The world demands it. If you crawl out
of a cynical headspace for just a moment and wrap an ear around it, you might
just find that you enjoy it too.
-=- SHGZ -=-
-=-=-==-=-=-
Shoegaze
is a genre of alternative rock that
originated in the late 80s. The genre is very
difficult to define, and it is even more difficult to evaluate music
within it. Generally, the genre is characterized by its
shimmering vocals, reverberating guitars, and
textural distortion that create
a tranquil, opaque
feeling.
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