10

HXC by numbers

We Are The Ocean are the first big draw of the day in the Rocksound Cave and although it’s not packed out it’s not far off. Not bad for a band that has only been around a couple of years although during that time they have toured extensively and released their debut album ‘Cutting Our Teeth’.

There seem to be a lot of excited young girls in here, a fact highlighted by the fact that when the band take the stage they are greeted by a cacophony of high pitched squeals; clearly down with the kids then! In a nutshell this is melodic post hardcore with all the usual ingredients you would expect. The sound isn’t too good early on, the guitars being too quiet and muffled, not that this stops the crowd from getting a decent pit going.

Singer Dan Brown goes down to the front rows before ‘Are You Proud of Me Now?’ and throws out some clichés like ‘Are you ready for this?’ and I find myself thinking that it’s all a bit like hardcore by numbers. There’s the clean vocals from guitarist Liam and the obligatory screaming from Brown coupled with classic poses from the rest of the band. There’s nothing new or original here but to their credit they do a good job of it and the crowd go nuts for it. Brown does a little crowd surfing (endearing himself yet further) and you can’t fault the delivery, which bristles with aggression.

New single ‘All Of This Has To End’ follows ‘God Damn Cool’ and sure as night is day melodic moments follow hardcore thrashing. It’s a good performance and they do their thing well, it’s just that so does everybody else, making it all rather predictable.