Album Review :
Young Oceans - Young Oceans
By Cimarron Hatch in Reviews | Comments closed
Artist: Young Oceans
Title: Young Oceans
Label: None
Release Date: 4/3/12
Reviewer: Cimarron Hatch
Buy The Album Here: iTunes / Bandcamp
Tracklisting:
- Come Holy One
- We Sing As One
- Great Is Our God
- I Will Be Still
- None But Thee
- You Are Alive
- Nothing Beside Jesus
- Lord Of All
- Hope Of Glory
- O Darkest Night
Young Oceans is a modern worship band from Brooklyn, New York. The band also leads worship at Trinity Grace Church in New York City, which is where the ideas for this album were incepted. They describe their music as a “neo-alternative worship project that evolved from hymns penned and arranged within the Trinity Grace Church community.” This self-titled album is full of songs that resemble classic hymns sung in churches everywhere.
“Come Holy One” opens the album, and the singer’s voice immediately reminded me of Sanctus Real’s frontman Matt Hammit. “We Sing As One” is a worship song that I found to really drag on with nothing happening. Next, “Great Is Our God” starts out with a slow piano intro like you would hear in a traditional church service, but then some interesting, but slow, hip-hop beats come in. “I Will Be Still” is almost nine minutes in length, which is way too long because it becomes completely monotonous. There are songs that are meant to be that long; this is not one of them. “None But Thee” is a bit better than the last one, and the beginning reminds me of some of Tenth Avenue North’s work from their first album.
Another mediocre song called “You Are Alive” passes by before the album comes to “Nothing Beside Jesus,” which I found sounds most like a classic hymn of any of these songs. “Lord Of All” has a dramatic intro that seemed to be like something you might find in a movie scene, but the song itself just didn’t live up to expectations. Next, “Hope Of Glory” has an appealing melody, but has the same problem as a lot of the other songs—it’s just too long. “O Darkest Night” ends the album on a slow note, but with a nice electric guitar riff throughout.
Overall: I can’t say that this is an album I will listen to again, or recommend to anyone. But I’m sure that this group does an awesome worship service at their church. I think that with the talent they’ve displayed on this album they could put together a much more spectacular project. This album could’ve been much better simply by having shorter tracks. With every song clocking in at least over four minutes, they’re just too long and become repetitive and occasionally downright boring. My hope for this album is that it will move people in worship, but, in my opinion, I don’t believe that is has much to offer solely as music for entertainment in everyday life. The entire album can be downloaded for free on NoiseTrade (below), but is also available on iTunes and Bandcamp if you would like to download it that way and support the band financially.