#aotd is the self-titled release from Being As An Ocean. Musically, this album mixes elements of Melodic Hardcore with the cleaner aspects of modern Metalcore. For an album released only a year later than their previous effort “How We Both Wondrously Perish”, it contains very little of the sound they were experimenting with on that album. The band has traded in the Post-Rock inspired songwriting of the previous album for something far punchier and immediate, harkening back to their debut. They have done a better job of incorporating both their vocalists on this album, with both singers making regular appearances on every track instead of having one vocalist hold a majority of each song. The pacing has also improved massively, the opener “Little Richie” kicks things off with a bang but manages to slow things down while still maintaining its energy and passion. Vocally, the frontman is sounding more visceral than ever thanks to the rougher production and gritty song topics being tackled throughout the album. The clean singing on here lacks the passion of the screams at some points, while his voice has a very pure sound to it; the clean singer puts in a very dry performance on tracks like “St. Peter”. BAAO has become renowned by their fans for their lyrical content and while there are some stand-out lyrical moments on here such as the phenomenal track “Sins of The Father”, I found the overtly religious sentiments present in most of the songs kinda off-putting. This is coming from someone who loves openly religious bands like August Burns Red and Underoath, the way BAAO approach writing about their faith lacks the subtlety for me to find it at all relatable. I can appreciate how passionate they are about it, but they fail to draw any emotional reaction from me and because I have formed emotional connections with bands who write predominately religious music before, I see this more as a reflection of poor songwriting on the band’s part than any biases I may have. Overall, this album has more consistently good songs than BAAO’s previous efforts but doesn’t have as many stand-out moments, making this a slight step down for the band.
Rating: 3.2/5
Music + Media 