We Are The Ocean - Cutting Our Teeth

After plenty of touring, East London post hardcore boys aim high with debut effort.


From the opening track of We Are The Ocean’s debut album ‘Cutting Our Teeth’, you can hear why the Essex five piece have been gathering some excitement behind them. ‘Look Alive’ hits you instantly with a neat guitar line weaved around the gritty vocals of Dan Brown, further enhanced by the catchy chorus, no doubt proving to be a live hit. The band have been touring for what seems like forever and with this debut effort, 2010 looks to be the year We Are The Ocean takes the fight to a genre that’s very quickly becoming stale.

‘Cutting Our Teeth’ shows you very quickly, just how good this band can be when it comes to creating some great post hardcore tracks. Songs such as the rampant, stop start ‘Our Days Are Numbered’, followed by the melodic ‘All Of This Has To End’ maybe don’t demonstrate a band who are reinventing the genre, but they certainly do reinvigorate it. Each song has been thought out with great detail, and this has made for great listening as each layer of sound fits nicely with the other, making some complex songs very easy to listen to.

This album keeps you on your toes. The wide array of songs on display helps ‘Cutting Our Teeth’ stay interesting for its full duration. Whether it be a melodic approach intertwined with crushing, dense guitar lines heard in ‘Confessions’, or the thunderous drive of instruments that is ‘These Days, I Have Nothing’, there is plenty to keep the listeners attention.

Where We Are The Ocean have excelled the most, however, is in their progression as a band. With the bands last EP there was a complete lack of identity in their sound. This problem has completely evaporated in ‘Cutting Our Teeth’, with the vocals getting a lot more edge, and the songs sounding much more refined and with a lot more confidence. With ‘This Is Called My Home’, the album is finished fittingly with a great harmony completed by soaring guitar lines and uplifting vocals. ‘Cutting Our Teeth’ is an album that will be adored by the bands current fan base, but will also no doubt do a great job in winning over some of those who were less impressed with We Are The Ocean’s previous release. Clocking in at just over 30 minutes, it also doesn’t over stay its welcome, and this makes it a great slab of post hardcore that will keep pestering you for repeated listens.