OCEAN GROVE – ODDWORLD

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7.0

• Bands:
  OCEAN GROVE
• Duration: 00:25:20
• Available from: 11/22/2024
• Label:

• Sharptone Records

Rogue nostalgia. Thirty years after Korn's self-titled debut, nu metal now has the contours of classic rock, but the second youth of the most discussed genre of the Nineties shows no sign of stopping – between old glories that are increasingly on the crest of the wave and new levers that carry the witness forward, depending on the case, contaminating it or not with current sounds.
The Australians Ocean Grove, who impressed us so much seven years ago with their debut “The Rhapsody Tapes”, are part of this latest trend, drawing heavily from the golden years of Ozzfest in a smoothie that adds nothing to the original but reinterprets those stylistic features with good melodic taste.
Riffoni, scratches and rapped/melodic singing mark “CELL DIVISION” and “FLY AWAY”, pieces that if they had been released a quarter of a century ago would have had a relative specific weight – imagine the Primer 55 as a term of comparison, but which in 2024 attract the curiosity of the youngest and the attention of those who grew up with the soundtracks of “The Scorpion King” and “The Queen of the Damned”.
The game of mirrors brings together heavyweights like Limp Bizkit (the bass line that opens “STUNNER”, the Durstian flow of “SOWHAT 1999”) and the Deftones of “White Pony” (“LAST DANCE”), with a remarkable resemblance compared to the characteristic emotional timbre of Chino Moreno; in the middle, there is also space for a nod to The Prodigy in the synths of “Raindrop”, and for a more urban ending in the final “OTP”, in collaboration with Adult Art Club and New Babylon.
In conclusion, “Oddworld” appears to be a derivative album as well as short-lived (eight pieces for just over twenty minutes, excluding the intro “OG FOREVER” and the skit “NO OFFENCE DETECTED”), but for the Nokia generation 3310 raised on bread and Ozzfest fun is guaranteed.