Spectreview: Oceanator – Things I Never Said

Released: August 28, 2020

Alternative
(Indie Rock)
(Grunge)

-ELECTRIC INDIGO-

For a guide to the review color rating system, click here.

“I think I think too much”

Ever since Elise Okusami’s debut LP under Oceanator dropped in August, it’s circulated across blogs and communities alike, resulting in Okusami’s continual presence on just about every underground livestream you can catch and culminating in her eventual signing to Polyvinyl. That’s an imposing context for your first listen of Things I Never Said, a record so heavily steeped in the saturnine mire of 2020 that it ends up providing a formidable counterpoint.

Things I Never Said is straight-ahead, ultra-simple, no-bullshit rock music. Its songs are all gravely bass, distorted guitars, humbly-recorded drums and Okusami’s unadorned voice. In a musical climate still obsessed with finding the next new sound, songs that simple are inherently risky because they need to be done extremely well at the ground level. If you’re looking for a new frontier in your indie rock, that’s one thing, but you’d be doing yourself a disservice writing off an album that does just exactly that. As uncomplicated as tracks like the grunge-lite “Goodbye, Goodnight” or the school-dance waltz of “Walk With You” are, be prepared for those vocal melodies to stick in your head for days afterward.

That’s all thanks to Okusami, who’s an intoxicating presence on her debut. In her straightforward vocals is a measured patience that feels like she speaks for you. Ironically, it’s the things she’s actually saying that most disarming. “A Crack in the World” is a state-of-affairs that resonates as much for its honesty as its accuracy; “Heartbeat” is as punch-drunk with infatuation as its bouncing melody; “I Would Find You,” which feels like a blooming cross-pollination between New Order and Sleater-Kinney, finds Okusami laying down an affecting devotional. Yet even though the record is all face-value, there’s still room for nuance, as the discordant guitar solo of “Sunshine” and the switched energies between chorus and verse on “Hide Away” prove.

Things I Never Said posits simple pleasures as transcendent experiences, imploring you to take it as it is. It’s perhaps the least presumptuous record I’ve heard this year, and if you let it nestle in your brain, it might just save your life.

Recommended for hanging out.