Oceanlord Premiere “Come Home” Video from Debut Demo
Melbourne, Australia’s Oceanlord posted their first demo — titled simply Demo — on June 26. Generally speaking, I’m not one for bands calling their initial short releases anything else, but if Oceanlord had gone the “debut EP” route instead, I don’t think I’d have been able to hold it against them. Certainly I’ve come across such “debut EPs” — demos by any other name — that are less coherent in style, less purposefully adventurous, patient in their craft and less aesthetically bold. Comprising just two songs — “Come Home” (7:41) and “Isle of the Dead” (7:56) — the offering takes aspects of emotive doom, heavy post-rock, and sludge in “Come Home” and, in the case of “Isle of the Dead,” latter-day Enslaved-style progressive black metal riffing. All of this is turned into an obscure and immediately individualized approach to craft. Each track showcasing a different look as they do, guitarist/vocalist Peter Willmott, bassist Jason Ker and drummer Jon May seem to have come into their demo with a clear idea of who they want to be as a band and, as their debut full-length is reportedly already in the works, the potential they show here only gives the impression that they’re ready to take on such a task.
“Come Home” is the more emotionally-focused of Demo‘s two inclusions, and the band would seem to have chosen to highlight it with the 
video premiering below in part for that reason. Sound-wise, the track starts off quiet and runs for about a minute before the echoing vocals enter with a longing echo that recalls Patrick Walker and Warning, and the strumming guitar and concurrent melodic hum (mellotron? keys?) add to the sense of space as the song unfolds and builds, a steady march of snare punctuating its motion. That snare sound, at least on my crap-tastic speakers, has a bit of bite to it in its place in the mix that might warrant keeping an eye on as they move into their album, but the crash and riffing that surrounds it is immersive in its flow such that it becomes almost like a matter of timekeeping for oars striking water. As “Come Home” progresses into its final movement, it does so with not only that continued rhythmic foundation, but with some additional swirl in Willmott‘s guitar and an increasingly hypnotic groove to coincide with the resonance on display lyrically and in the earlier vocal performance.
This? This right here? These guys are onto something.
Obviously I don’t know what the future is going to bring on any level, let alone what a band from the other side of the planet is going to sound like on their first record, but there are few things more exciting than a group who come together knowing what they want to do sound-wise and setting about doing it. Demo bleeds purpose. I look forward to the album hopefully soon to follow.
Enjoy the video premiere. Quote from the band and more info follow:
Oceanlord, “Come Home” official video premiere
Oceanlord on “Come Home”:
“Come Home” is about losing who we love, and the regret that haunts us. We launched Oceanlord in January, played some cool shows, recorded our demo in February, felt like things were really taking off, planned a launch gig in March, you can guess how that went! We were gutted, and we could see so many bands online hurting, losing hope. Weeks dragged on and “Come Home” spoke to me, I wasn’t ready to walk away and regret. Jon (drums) had a contact at an amazing space, so we came up with this story for the song, a macabre short horror. We worked out how to make it safe, and comply with the city-wide lockdown, we had a whole crew ready to go. Then a few weeks out the film crew bailed. We found some really talented people who liked the project, came on board at the last minute, and we filmed it in one massive day — everyone brought this creative energy and the darkness we wove was electric. We’re really proud of how it has come together. This is a video about enduring, surviving the horror.
Ghoul Bride: Kerryx
Produced by: Peter Willmott
Director: Brigid Morgan
Cinematographer: Samuel Young
Key Grip / Set Design: Miriam Grey
Assistant: Jessie Ribchester
Location: The Establishment Studios Fitzroy
Engineer, Mix, and Mastering: Lewcifer
Oceanlord are an Australian stoner rock trio formed in 2019 with a desire to take on the continent with a storm of riffs. Fusing the sounds of bands from Windhand to All Them Witches by way of Portishead and The Sword they just started to make waves in the Melbourne underground before the coronavirus shutdowns. Now, they’ve released a two track demo highlighting their progressive mix of doom with psychedelic sounds that they have dubbed ‘Stoner Gloom Rock’. Oceanlord have now started work on their debut full length, seeking to satisfy their love of all things heavy, dark, transcendent, and slow. Once more they are distilling the magic of the ‘Stoner Gloom’ sound.
Oceanlord is:
Jason Ker – Bass
Jon May – Drums
Peter Willmott – Guitar/Vox
