Oceansize Live at The Sugarmill - 30th September

Blending post-rock with elements of alt-indie and prog, Oceansize are an extremely hard working band who regularly tour the UK and fortunately keep Stoke on their radar, and can often be seen tearing up The Sugarmill in Hanley. This time around the band are promoting material from their release earlier this year 'Self Preserved While the Bodies Float Up', as diverse a record as the rest of the bands' back-catalouge but with the amps well and truly turned up, probably their heaviest work to date. Live the new album sounds as vital as ever, 'Build Us A Rocket Then..' and 'Silent/Transparent' are particular highlights, the latter being introduced as "one of those special track 7's" and it was certainly one of the most special tracks in a rivoting and glorious setlist. Having said that the band were keen to entertain long term fans and dipped into their previous records to great effect, Everyone Into Positons' 'Music For A Nurse' was even more emotionally charged and affecting than it is on record, personally that was quite the feat seeing as it is one of my favourite songs of recent years. As you'd expect from a band aptly called Oceansize, their setlists are often structured in a very rise and fall fashion, one minute drawing you in with the beauty and tenderness of their constructions, the next smacking you in the face with a thick wall of dark sounds. With their style of spacey post-rock their music is perfect for live performances, their tracks swell and swell, becoming even bigger than on record, ocean sized even. The set is closed with the same track that they closed with the last time I went to see them, the phenomenally grandiose 'Ornament/The Last Wrongs' a wonderous way to end such a breathtaking show. Long live Oceansize.