OCEANSIZE - HOME & MINOR (EP) - 2009

'Home & Minor' is proclaimed to be an 'EP' and because of that, many of you may skim over the release as an unneeded pre-cursor to an upcoming long-player but on this occasion you'd be wrong in making that judgement.

In fact, this 'EP' is much closer to a full-blown full length than a great deal of the records we get through on a day-to-day basis here at S.G. And though it's declared as the band's 'acoustic EP', that really doesn't mean acoustic in the ordinary sense. They mean it in an Oceansize sense.

Home & Minor is a six song, thirty-two minute eulogy to the band and their past material. There's not a guitar pedal or heavy break in sight and though that's probably where the term 'acoustic' was tagged from, the EP certainly isn't just a gentle strum-along with crooning vocals. There's an emotional core set deep within the record's heart and it's from there that the music emanates and comes to life.

There's no individual song that stands as an overall crux but instead, it's the milky, drifting haze that drenches every moment of the music that becomes the focal pull. It smothers the air and hangs from every pore of it's body, drenching the atmosphere with a heavy, thickening dew. Album closer The Strand drips with textured, layered guitar that entwine with whispered vocals and otherworldly bleeps and blips. It's an eight-minute beast of a send-off and a drastic way to leave your listener, akin to the feeling of a spell being lifted when the record finally stops.

We've always been fans of the band's louder offerings (hell, Effloresce is still one of our favourite records) but we never knew how adept they were at enunciating the quieter side of their personality. Hints of Oceansize's gentle nature were present on older tracks such as Music For A Nurse but it's nothing like the eerily quiet progressiveness seen on here. EP title track Home & Minor glitters like a busy night sky, cornered in by airy, floating vocals. It's another eight-minute heavyweight that never outstays it's welcome and only adds to the records overall density.

Each of the six tracks lift away from one another, leaving a different and separate imprint on the listener and it keeps the record from becoming just a singular piece of music. It's nothing that shouldn't be expected from a band of their calibre but it's nice to see that even a small release such as this is given the same amount of attention to detail as their full releases.

It's an offering and a presentation on the bands musical diversity and artistry and though there's certainly more technical proficiency and intensity to be seen on their LP releases, this EP with this alternative, down-played eeriness and viscosity deserves a huge amount of attention.

It couldn't come a better time either as those creepy chords go go down fantastically well with those chilly winds.
http://strangeglue.com