Ocean of Zero – Where Sickness Prevails

Ocean of Zero is a death metal band from Queensland, Australia, consisting of a few guys who have been playing together in various punk, crust and death metal outfits for almost 20 years. Ocean… was formed in early 2009 and so far they have put out two very limited demos entitled “The Wake” and “Shun the Light”, both on tape. “Where Sickness Prevails” is a CD compilation of these two demos, soon to be released on German label Obscure Domain Productions.



Musically, the band plays in a style similar to early Morbid Angel. Straight up, fast, filthy and old-school sounding death fukkin’ metal is what these blokes are all about, and they showcase it pretty fucking well. The production on both demos is very raw and definitely sounds home brewed, which is refreshing to hear amongst the waves and waves of cleaner sounding DM being released all over the place these days.

Overall, the second half of this CD (the four songs from the “Shun the Light” demo) is superior to the first half, mostly due to production values but also from the band obviously sounding a lot more comfortable as a unit and sounding much tighter… you can really tell that they had evolved by this time. This half also features my favourite song of the bunch, “Crawling Bastard”, a quite varied number that showcases all the best elements of the bands sound ranging from their blasting Morbid Angel worship to their slab-dragging doooooooomy sections, which don’t pop up too often, but when they do, they sound very eerie and contrast the fast parts well.

All in all; Ocean of Zero aren’t about to reinvent the wheel, nor are they setting out to be your new favourite death metal band. These guys play death metal for themselves, not to follow trends. If you’re after something raw and ugly to bang your head to, I’d recommend buying this CD from Obscure Domain when it comes out.

3.5/5