October 11, 2004 - Music For Nurses

Six days after my last release and a year since their debut album "Effloresce", Oceansize released their first EP "Music For Nurses" on October 11, 2004. Oceansize continue their same style of alternative rock, but there are some hints of metal on this EP as well. Let's check it out!

The EP begins with "One Out Of None" and it starts a little trippy with some droning guitars, then Mark Heron starts up an interesting drumbeat and things build into a pretty cool main riff that is quite heavy! With three guitarists I'm not sure who's playing what but at least two of them are synced up for a loud, emphatic and headbanging main riff! Once Mike Vennart starts to sing the verse the heaviness falls away a bit but a cool new guitar riff comes in to carry the verse and Vennart sounds solid singing overtop. The heaviness comes in and out and at times we even get Vennart yelling/screaming a bit, and I think he sounds pretty good! Of course I like the heavy parts the best, but even the "non-heavy" parts are still quite cool and everything sounds pretty solid. I like how wild and visceral Vennart sounds when he yells, especially at the very end! A pretty great way to kick things off! Up next is "Paper Champion" and it too starts off droning and trippy until one guitarist starts an interesting main riff. Things stay quieter as Vennart sings a high, soft verse to match the mood and they seem content to lightly jam this out until around three minutes in when the other guitarists add in some cool heavier guitars to spice things up. Jon Ellis adds some trippy and cool piano to the mix as well and once everyone is getting involved things sound pretty cool. A lighter but still cool tune. Track 3 is a short song called "Drag The 'Nal" and Ellos plays some long, droning keyboards that give things a real post-rock vibe. It's a pretty forgettable song honestly, but it leads right into the next track "Dead Dogs An' All Sorts" where the droning keyboards continue and we get some very light guitar, bass and drums overtop. Eventually Vennart adds some very light vocals as well and while it's certainly all very fluffy, it is also well performed. After several minutes some louder, pretty fast and cool guitar comes in, the rhythm section speeds up to match it and we've got ourselves a pretty cool ending riff that continues to very smoothly build and build and get louder until the headbanging finish that you never would have expected at the beginning! It took a while to get going, but once it did, damn! That was some cool stuff! The last song on the EP is "As The Smoke Clears" and they follow right into a great riff to start this one off with two super heavy notes, followed by a light, very high little guitar flair and it sounds pretty sweet to me! Some cool drums by Heron join the mix and with some more guitars adding to the heaviness this is a pretty awesome little riff! From here things seem to dissipate into a light and trippy main riff with some cool bass by Ellis, Vennart singing a nice soft verse and some trippy and cool guitars. With Vennart, Richard Ingram and Steve Durose all playing guitar there's lots of interesting things going on in this quietly epic main riff. But this song is just over seven minutes long, which means they have time to bring it full circle and eventually return to some more heavy stuff, including some more high screaming by Vennart! Probably my favourite song on the EP!

That is the end of "Music For Nurses" and I thought it was a solid little EP by Oceansize. They did a good job of mixing their lighter side with their heavier side with both of them getting lots of attention. Of course I love the heavy stuff and I love it when Mike Vennart really lets loose and screams. A cool EP for sure, and I look forward to their next full album!