For a brand new band Oshiner are already making some killer waves. The five piece metalcore band have been hard at work tearing up their local music scene of Savannah, Georgia playing an impressive run of shows with some fairly stacked line-ups. Oshiner have focused all this momentum into their new album Thalassophobia. Which is especially exciting considering they just came together in March of last year and before this album they had only a couple of singles to their name.
Thalassophobia is an exceptionally strong full-length debut. This is easily the most enamored I’ve been with a new metalcore release since Foreign Hands‘ 2022 EP Bleed the Dream. And just like with that release Oshiner have a lot going for them right out of the gate, skipping right over the stumbling blocks of an awkward split or a quickly slapped together demo straight into a quality premiere release.
Modern metalcore tends to fall into one of two camps. Either it’s melodic death metal watered down by clean vocal choruses and weird instrumental wankery. Or it’s unrelenting and heavy as hell with only occasional breaks for softer elements thrown in haphazardly if not absent entirely. While Oshiner are mostly in the latter category, the lighter moments on this record are some of the standouts and well worth highlighting.
Opening track “Pilot” and closing song “Reprise” feature a mirrored piano with ocean sounds duet. Like a welcoming hello and gentle goodbye to the album. The hazed out clean vocal sections on “Invictus” backed by phasing guitar lines and laid back drum work have an almost Alice In Chains quality to them. Then there’s the spoken word intro on “PAIN” featuring Nat Lacuna of fellow Savannah local talent The Holy Ghost Tabernacle Choir. The intro to “Bliss in the Abyss” is pure Metallica or maybe Foo Fighters, expanding by the midpoint into more Trivium or Opeth territory. I find this flirtation with hard rock within what is ostensibly a death metal song quite intriguing.
Thalassophobia is an intense and persistent fear of deep bodies of water, such as the ocean. There’s an element of that fear present in the work. From the album cover which has a distant figure not quite going down to meet the waves, to the natural watery movement between the clean and harsh compositions of the music itself. Overall anxiety and an exploration of fear are very much key to Thalassophobia’s thematic concerns.
Following hot on the heels of “Bliss”, which is easily the proggiest song on the album, “Dementia” is one of the most pure beatdown tracks on Thalassophobia. This sequencing choice serves to accentuate both the quieter moment that precedes “Dementia” and this aggressive smashfest. The vocals at the beginning of this song have a rap-like cadence to them that is infectious. In fact the vocal range on this song in particular and the album in general are outstanding. “Dementia” is nearly impossible not to headbang along to. This is going to be a great song to slam down in the pit or get pumped up at the gym.
“Quietus” is anything but quiet. The guitar riffs are slapping and the drums are blasting. The vocal work here is almost black metal in tone with a filthy gravel death shriek. Lawnchair Youth recently shot and produced a music video for “Quietus” on their channel giving this young group even more exposure. I really dig the band’s twist on the straight edge X’s with Oshiner O’s on their hands. Even simple branding moves like this helps to form a strong identity.
Oshiner’s media presence is excellent all around. It’s obvious that they are serious about putting in the work to rise up within the ranks of today’s up and coming metal bands. I mean how many metal bands do you know that are reaching out to the kids on TikTok? Well this one is. Even the magazine Voyage Savannah is getting in on the act by interviewing/introducing Oshiner earlier this year.
At six minutes “The Chase” is the longest song on the album and it might just be my favorite. It builds up, it slams down, and has this noisy, melancholic piano driven outro that leads right into “Bliss”. Yet another standout quiet moment on a record that isn’t afraid to indulge in taking the time to stretch out a feeling. But it’s that breakdown at the midpoint that makes this track such a gem.
So as much as Oshiner are firmly within the metalcore genre space. I would argue that it is their unique play on the dynamics between quiet and loud elements that makes Thalassophobia so successfully executed. Their breakdowns are so extreme and their riffs are so engaging that the melodic moments hit all the harder where it counts. Thalassophobia is the kind of debut album about which I would normally say, ‘It shows a lot of promise and I’m really interested to hear where the band goes from here.’ But this record is so damn good I’m perfectly happy to just give it another spin.
