Oceansize have gone about their business quietly, building themselves a hard earned reputation for creating songs of grandiose. Each of their previous two albums have been filled with ambition and technically brilliant time changes. At their best Oceansize are peerless in their majesty.

Whilst Frames easily surpasses anything you are likely to hear this side of the Led Zeppelin reformation, there is the nagging feeling that, yes, this is Oceansize, but it could be Oceansize at any point in the last five years. Frames has all the finesse and delicacy expectant of them but it never shifts up a gear to match some of the intensity that was found on Music for Nurses or either of their previous long players. You would expect “Trail of Fire” to be pretty incendiary. It takes five minutes for a 90 second crescendo to be built but as the song dissipates at the eight minute mark I was still waiting for the speakers to implode as they have so often proved an adeptness for.

Savant shimmers and echoes with memories of long forgotten ghosts and is augmented with a string accompaniment that serenely fuses with the bands unmistakeable sound. An evil music box is evoked at the opening of “Only Twin” where (Mike Vennart) literally spits the lyrics “I just wish I could have left you there sitting in your own shit / see cos I’ve come through all this before, I’ve bought that skinny tee, with a big black gaping hole where my heart used to be, which says baby I renounce thee.” The strings are in evidence once again but they are pushed further back into the mix as “Only Twin” loudens and reaffirms why Oceansize are still so far ahead of their contemporaries.

Like a shrill babies cry in the dead of night, they have the capability to ignite even the most slumbersome drone (if you don’t take my word for it, the transition from funeral death march, to wall of sound rock in the ten minute “An Old Friend of the Christies” should leave you in little doubt). “Sleeping Dogs and Dead lions” dispenses with etiquette and assaults the senses from the off, it is one of the shorter tracks on Frames and shows that they still have the vigour to mix with their cunning.

Make no mistake, this is a great record, but having set the bar at such a height it was always going to be difficult for Oceansize to maintain their exacting standards. However, many bands will only dream of producing eight tracks and sixty minutes of music as good as this in their careers, these guys have been doing it for years. Where they go from here is anyones guess but they are unlikely to start churning out three minute top ten singles any time soon.
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Links
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