You know when a band only exists as a vehicle for the lead singer?

 

This is not one of those bands. Though ex-Mile High vocalist Dity’s voice is prevalent on every track of Coridian’s Oceanic ,

 

You can tell from the outset that this was once an instrumental band. They wear their instrumental origins on their sleeve. It’s all in the progressions and the moods. The sound-scaping with the effects and the way they don’t use the same repetitious drum pattern with a fill every fourth bar and think they can get away with it. It’s about the voice blending into and being part of the music, as opposed to the music being constructed around the voice. 

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I’m reminded of a little-known super-group of sorts, Soen.

While their 2014 album Tellurian retained the distinctive Soen sound, it was a deviation from 2012’s Cognitive, which was critically panned for sounding more than a little Tool inspired. I mention this only because any comparisons made could prove detrimental to any further Coridian.

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Pushing them into a peg hole shaped like Jakob and Kerretta because of the way all three bands treat music more as aural art than a money making personality cult, or in a box next to Chevelle because three of them have the same last name and they sound like Chevelle brings the risk the band will change their ways on the next release. 

Saying they’re how Incubus should have sounded might bring out more Incubus, and ain’t nobody got time for that.

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Like Soen were good because they were this thinly veiled Tool tribute band, Coridian are good because of all the other bands they remind me of, and how they bring together the sounds I know into something different. Something unique. Something Coridian.

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So you want a review of what Oceanic sounds like. It sounds like Coridian, and Coridian have a good thing going. Not to push them too quickly, but I’m looking forward to more.

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- Muzic.net.nz