Clean Muffins EP

Oceana is an average four piece indie rock band out of Florida. However, this was not always the case! They used to be a very talented quintet that played a post-hardcore style with a vengeance. However, that band apparently broke up in 2009, and this group of people that were once part of that greatness have since fallen so far.

I want to be very clear. I have nothing against indie rock that is done well. If it has talent, if it has quality musicianship, if it has originality, I can appreciate it, even if I don't like it. This EP has none of those things.

Clean Head opens with "Blue". A rather generic guitar riff, lacking any semblance of their previous overdrive laced glory, with a drum fill reminiscent of the old days laying down the back drop brings the track in. Now, at this point, you may be thinking, "Ok, this isn't the Oceana I knew, but maybe this'll still be good." Then the vocals kick in and your hopes are shattered. From a band that had such incredible vocal prowess on both the clean and screamed spectra, this was possibly the biggest disappointment. "Barracuda, Capital of the World" is the next offering on this abomination unto music, and it opens with what I suppose is a bluesy guitar bit and ambient vocals, but it's not done well. This progression of failure continues as the song goes on, and it really never gets better.

Track 3 is entitled "Wool God" and features the same barely distorted guitar that by now will be grating on your earholes to the point that you'll probably just want to turn this atrocity off and ask for your money and time back from whatever poor soul sold it to you. It has such a generic, tired feel to it that you'll wonder how many times you've listened to someone else play this before. Finally, we come to the aptly named closing song "Joy", as this is probably what you are feeling when you learn that this is the end of it. They open it once again using a mediocre guitar/drum combo. However, believe it or not, when the vocals kick in, they sound even worse than before due to a warble that found its way into his voice. They decided to throw a guitar "solo" in about halfway through the song. I use "solo" very loosely, because it's more like a beginner's guitar riff than a solo.

Even from a technical aspect, this EP really isn't very good. The mixing sounds like something they did themselves in a basement using crappy equipment and Audacity. The only high point is that all of the instruments are present, even the bass.

Clean Head is definitely a rebirth of a band. Unfortunately, this band decided to move away from something they did very well and try to produce something they are not suited for in the least. I can only hope this was merely a phase, and that their next release will bring us back a taste of the old Oceana.

>Pawn