There’s a certain familiarity to OCEΔNSS that works because it’s also effortlessly cool. Like that friend you had in college that could tie a burlap sack with a belt and make it look chic, OCEΔNSS will appeal to the forever-young side of your soul. Listening to it is like being at a dive bar filled with sinister scenesters who will cut you over which is the best Joy Division record.
It’s no surprise that the band is from DF through and through—it sounds heavily influenced by those bands your alterlatino friends rocked out to before they started making their own. A browner Sonic Youth/Ride hybrid, if you will. Their EP Atlantic (get it?? OCEANSS) is more of a collection than a record. Their first track, “Tarot,” is slow, hazy, and even a little sweet—making it radically different from the second song, “DLYSD,” which is so rocked out that it almost betrays the flow of the record. Aside from this tryst into rock city, though, Atlantic has an identity—it’s straight up Latino shoegaze. If you dig on Centavrvs but always wished they were a little heavier and also smoked more weed, the track “Outer Limits” will be your anthem. If you are more into the light side of things but you have a dark edge, “Tarot” is for you. If you are undecided/if you like both of those options, then “Ancolia” or “Lick The Star” will tug at your heartstrings.
OCEΔNSS is a fun band to look out for if dark, post punk shoegaze floats your boat. They certainly toe that line between playful and terrifying, and their video for “Tarot” does just that: it juxtaposes soft, dreamy music with possibly the worst bender of your life. But one thing is for sure: OCEΔNSS is having fun and invoking the don’t-give-a-fuck attitude of post punk (and all rock, really) to the max.