Remember all those post-grunge bands that popped up a few years ago in the wake of Creed and Nickelback's success? If you don't, I'll assume that it's because you've mentally blocked them all out. And I wouldn't blame you. The music industry certainly knows how to take a popular style and beat it to death. I liked a few bands with that sound, but sheesh, enough already.

I bring up some of those unfortunate memories because I'm sensing a similar trend emerging with "piano rock" these days. Not like it's anything new to have the piano be a prominent instrument in a rock band, but ever since Coldplay and Keane hit it big, it seems like every label wants to sign a few ivory-tinkling hopefuls. It hasn't quite hit the saturation point for me yet where I'm totally tired of this style, but I've got to admit, there are lots of these types of bands that I've been trying to keep track of, and I've started to realize that distinguishing them from one another is getting difficult. I enjoy some bands in this genre, such as Mae and Copeland (the latter being a more recent confession that was all but forced out of me), but it seems like I discover another one every month or so.

Thankfully, my latest discovery in this genre, a Bakersfield, California band called Lost Ocean, doesn't seem to fall into the "Plod along like Coldplay and hope you can jerk some tears out of your audience" trap. For the most part, they're a peppy, four-piece rock band that uses the piano to add a lot of color and joy to their upbeat songs, much like Mae, while their mellower songs attempt a slightly artsy, "slow-burn" sort of effect, like a less indie version of Copeland or Cool Hand Luke. As far as splitting the difference between styles goes, this works pretty well, but then I look at some of those other bands and realize that Lost Ocean isn't really all that ambitious. They're catchy, their melodies are often quite memorable, and they give you enough of a word picture to set the appropriate mood (ranging from melancholy to nostalgia to outright, unabashed happiness). But they're more about hooking you in with what works than coming up with truly innovative arrangements that breathe new life into the genre. It's not brainless music, by any means, so I can live with that - I just don't want to get people's hopes up too much about what kind of band this is.

Oddly enough, I discovered this band because they were the headlining act on a tour where I didn't even stick around to hear them play. The tour was to celebrate some of the new bands that had signed to fledgling label Credential Records, and being a big fan of Future of Forestry (themselves being a keyboard-heavy band, but with a bit more musical muscle and glittery, synthesized keyboard work to set a unique, worshipful mood), I turned out to see those guys play on a Thursday evening, but called it a night once the obnoxiously abrasive Dizmas took center stage. I don't know if Lost Ocean made it that night (I think they got stuck in traffic), but I had heard interesting things about their style and decided that I should check them out as I normally would have before going to a show of theirs, if I had planned ahead enough. I discovered an album that strikes a solid balance between radio friendly pop/rock energy and the slightly more shadowy, shifting textures provided in the band's ballads. At times they have ever-so-slight prog rock tendencies, and at others, you can totally tell they're working from the "straightforward emotional buildup" playbook. No single cliche is adhered to enough times to annoy me, so while some tracks could have been a little more thought out, I'd say they did a more than adequate job of making an addictive CD that's gotten unexpected amounts of playtime in my car over the last few months. Other bands have probably done this better, but few of them can adapt so well to my various moods as Lost Ocean. Their songs are thoughtfully written, but not overly complex; spiritual, but not at all blunt regarding their beliefs, and for the most part, an excellent pick-me-up that doesn't kill brain cells in the process. The critic in me wants them to do better, but the guy who has to commute to work and back every day sure appreciates the effort that they put into the first go-round, and expects that this Ocean will grow deeper with time.

(How does one lose an ocean, anyway? It reminds me of that Dave Matthews Band song "Where Are You Going", where he sings, "Don't hide away, like an ocean", which never really made sense to me... but I guess that's beside the point. On with the review.)

Believe
I found a new reside
Story from the inside
Of the insane asylum tonight...
The band starts out with one of their most straightforward and poppy rock songs - it's catchy but not really a stylistic standout. It's a good enough intro - you hear the piano plinking around behind the chiming guitars and you realize it's not just the usual guitar-bass-drums setup, and they pull some odd sonic tricks like making the vocals all watery in the second verse (I'm actually not so sure I like that part of the song) and throwing in a decent guitar solo during the bridge. The song actually describes a friendship being called off, on account of one person being a liar - the "belief" that is stated is basically that the person can no longer be trusted. In that sense, it's similar to how dc Talk's Supernatural led off with "It's Killing Me", except that their song was much more interesting than this one. Lost Ocean isn't getting off to the greatest start lyrically, since they try to be descriptive but lazily tie a few snippets of lyrics together, such as "Fool you, trick has begun", as if they're being incredibly strict about the rationing of syllables. You'll notice this minimalist lyrical style here and there over the course of the album, but it's generally not this bothersome.

Still Life
Headlights crawl by, a blur of white
Power lines form proof of life...
The band sets out to establish their artsy aspirations with the second track, a moody and somewhat restless piece which shifts back and forth between 5/8 and 6/8 time (occasionally making the lyrical flow a bit awkward), and offers keyboard player Skyler Johnson a chance for some brief but lovely fills, on both the piano and what sounds like a Fender Rhodes. The music and the lyrics fit together well in that both are abstract and poetic, with the chorus being a slight misstep as they try to speak more generally about needing love and fighting apathy. Since this one's track 2, it can be a bit of a momentum-killer in between more radio-friendly tracks (not normally something I'd complain about, but this is normally the sort of thing you save for a deeper point within the album), but I really do enjoy the more aggressive bursts of guitar and drums which follows the keyboard solo, and the quirky ending of the song, which takes Jeff Grey's chorus vocal and chops it up electronically until it's splintered into to tiny little digital pieces that echo off into the distance.

Just Glide
Come with me
It's time for us to move our feet
Get this moving
Make this night what it should be...
Here's a slice of catchy piano rock done right. Christopher Short's quick drum roll gets us started, and then we're faced with an irresistibly joyous piano riff that ripples throughout pretty much the entire song. It's the type of single-worthy track that can immediately put a smile on your face if you're up for that sort of thing - it often has that affect on me even when I'm not in such a good mood, and not just any old happy song can accomplish that. Lyrically, it's about as vague as they come - "Just glide, no glance, make the street and lights will dance". Hell if I know what that means, but it sure sounds joyous, and it does it without being cliche. Maybe the chorus is a little more guilty of being cliche - "You can run across the sky, you can bring the night to life" - but Jeff Grey has just the right amount of lift in his vocals to pull it off. It may not be a feat of songwriting, but it's one of those songs that'll take me forever to get tired of. (I had originally grown accustomed to a version of this song that faded out at the end, only to discover when I bought the album that it actually pulled off a cleverly abrupt ending by faking you out with the transition back into the verse - I must have previously downloaded the early version from the Night to Life EP, which gets its name from this song.)

You Are
One chose to stay, the other flew away
One chose to stray from the promises they made...
Back to more straightforward radio single territory - this one packs a little less punch than "Just Glide", but I can see it making some waves if given the right opportunity. There's still a good amount of piano goodness trickling throughout this song, which appears to address the story of the Prodigal Son in about the most generic terms possible ("One chose to stay, the other flew away"). I hate to use the word "generic" when I'm honestly trying to get people interested in this band, but they really could have benefited from an extended vocabulary on this one. I like the intentional contradiction in the line which ends the chorus, "You can make it, but you just can't make it", since it's later revealed to be telling us that we can't make it on our own, and they've just truncated the line at first to snag your attention. The problem is that the rest of the song doesn't really say anything brilliant enough to justify the use of that literary trick.

Mute
Whispering crows into the night
Disrupting the cumulus at work...
This is one of those slower songs that sounds a bit plain and clunky at first, but starts to make more sense once you know there's a buildup in intensity for you to anticipate. The drums, the light tone of an organ or electronic keyboard, and light strokes of guitar around the edges get the song off to a fairly mellow start, bumping along in 6/8 time as Jeff sings of a still, silent moment where he's suddenly forced to stop and listen to the world around him instead of rushing by it. He's realizing that everything's been flying by so quickly because he's been living "life on mute". While there's not a lot to go on here, his attempt to poetically describe the slow passing of clouds overhead is somewhat interesting. The song might overstay its welcome a bit, especially with its long fade and the uncomfortable silence that follows before the next track comes in (maybe that was intentional, given the subject matter?), but it's worth being patient through the buildup, due to how the guitar, piano, and drums play off of each other as the song gets more and more worked up near the end.

Dreams
I found the cure
All of your physical ailments no more
In my mind, you're alright...
This is the song on the record that people are most likely to misunderstand - not for any controversial reason, but simply because they'll just hear the chorus and think it's hopelessly insipid. I can't blame you - verses that describe running through cars and flying through stars and being alright and all that sort of nonsense can sound pretty useless when they all lead up to a chorus that proclaims, "Dream forever, we can dream forever/ Dream forever, we can, together, together." It's darn catchy, with nothing but the drums and bass leading off at first as Jeff starts to brag about his silly superpowers, but listen more carefully, and you'll pick up a key line - "Never mind, that's a lie". He's talking about the things he's capable of saying over the airwaves, to an audience who just wants to hear a feel-good catchy song that doesn't require them to think. It's basically an admission that just because he can declare, "I'm alright" or "You're alright" and shrug off everyone's problems in a song, that doesn't make it so in real life. This corresponds to how the chorus ends, which you may not pick up on at first since the words are so commonplace and the emphasis is still on that word "together" - but now the line is "Still we'll never have it together." OK, so what, dreaming doesn't really get us anywhere in and of itself. Perhaps that's still a bit of a cliche. A little more descriptiveness would still be helpful here, but I do appreciate the mildly tongue-in-cheek nature of the song, even if that's gonna fly under most everyone's radar.

Everything Is
Record player spins
Takes us back to when passion first arrived
Everyone else is bored, everything is a chore
But I feel fine, just like you...
For my money, this track is the best of the ballads - a slow, dreamy piano piece that shuffles along on some understated but excellent drumming (Christopher Short is kind of the unsung hero who adds a lot of nuance to this band's sound; it just isn't as obvious because most ears will listen for the piano and guitar), describing a rainy day and an attempt to escape boredom with a loved one in terms that are part sentimental, and part esoteric. Despite the rhythmic trickiness of slipping some ascending chords played in 3/4 time where one might expect 4/4 in the chorus, this song flows beautifully, to the point where the verse becomes the chorus without the transition being an obvious one. I relate to the song because I'm the kind of guy who hates to stay cooped up at home, even if it's all rainy and dreary outside - I want to just grab my lover, hop in the car, and go searching for a patch of sunshine fighting its way through the clouds. This one's all about escapism, but they do in an interesting and artistic way, so I can't fault them for that. I like how little snippets of the verses we've already heard are brought together at the end of the song, as one final verse trails off mid-thought and leaves us with silence.

Trust
December, come and gone
The sound resounds too long
What's this you're running from?
This ballad is probably the blandest of the bunch - it wants to be an emotionally powerful slow-burner with its subtle drum rolls and its soaring chorus, and it feels like they're going for the climax a bit too soon to really earn the emotion they're expressing. I do like how Jeff Grey slips into falsetto so easily on many of these songs, but here I feel like I'm being a bit manipulated when the verse becomes the chorus after only three lines, and I'm being assured about whatever vague things are worrying me, "It's in your head, try your best to trust me instead." It doesn't help that there are very few lines of distinct lyrics in the song to offer us something new to think about as it leisurely unwinds - the phrases "your head" and "remember where we are" get repeated far too frequently. Thanks to the piano playing and the rhythm of it, they get away with sounding a little bit artsy here if you're not listening too closely, but this is really a case of taking loftier aspirations and aiming too low, which is a problem that a lot of "Christian" bands have due to the temptation to express their thoughts in overused terms that will be immediately recognizable to a certain audience. Lost Ocean doesn't seem to be aiming for that audience at all due to their overall vagueness, but I still have to call 'em like I see 'em when I hear a track like this that takes too obvious of an approach.

Lights
Glass fogged with words of malice and scorn
Disarming the beauty of spontaneity...
Fortunately, the band has saved up a good burst of musical energy and lyrical intrigue for the record's second-to-last track, a beautiful but temperamental piece that hits like many successive waves, with its rolling piano and its rather hyperactive drums. It's a clash of beauty and furious movement, and it all seems to be perfectly placed with the intent of disrupting our complacency - as Jeff croons in the climactic chorus, "Comfort won't translates to happiness". The song gives the feeling of a distant light, calling out to us from the other side of that restless ocean, visible but unattainable due to our fear. It seems to be concerned with the times in our lives that we second-guess ourselves due to a "fear of the unknown" and lose out on "the beauty of spontaneity" - that phrase has got to be my favorite of all of the short poetic statements that are offered up on this record. As they get deeper into the song, there's another sweet guitar solo, and a false ending which leads us back into the bouncy piano-and-drums motif of the verse, which gradually fades out as if to keep that melody cemented in our minds after the song is gone. (The outro was a good addition - on the EP version of this song, they just ended it the traditional way, after the last chorus.)

Vast
Feel the bitter and the sweet
You decide the collide into me
Heart the bitter symphony
It's what I needed to see...
The most spiritually direct song on the album shows up at the end - with its lonely, angular guitar intro, it's not too far removed from the type of slow-building ballad that Sanctus Real or the Newsboys might come up with. The empty space in between the guitar chords is there to remind us of the vastness of Creation, and this song is dedicated to the Creator, continually noting His massive imagination and stating, "I can't compare to that". For the most part, it's convincingly reverent, even if it depends more on the music than the lyrics to really offer that idea of vastness - it seems like these guys have good song ideas, but then they have a tough time filling them out with more descriptive lyrics, so we get weird analogies like, "You are the one, bullet in the gun" and so forth. Overall, I like the sentiment that sometimes we have to cling to a worldview bigger than what we can understand - as the chorus states, "Still my reasons can sometimes be misplaced, and seasons may hide but you don't change". Being the album's last song, and it's longest, you can predict by now that they're going to take their time building it in to something huge, and they do exactly that, allowing the "ah"s and "oh"s provided by the background vocalists to add an ethereal presence as the same four guitar chords cycle through again and again, eventually breaking out into - well, more wordless "oh"ing and "ah"ing. It's musically powerful, but it doesn't really mean much, and the climax hits, and lingers on its final burst of energy before it can make too much of an impression, ending the album on a tense note.

There's a hidden track, but it's merely a stuffy, distant reprise of one of the verses from "Believe", which wasn't that great of a song to begin with, so it's really not worth waiting around for.

Hmmm. I guess this is one of those CDs that makes me see a band's potential, and because of that I want to spread the word, but when I dig into it from a critical perspective, I find easy ways to poke holes in their creative attempts. I feel kind of bad for doing that, because I want folks to discover the balance of subtle beauty and addictive ear candy that Lost Ocean has to offer, but I have the feeling that it might not be until their second or third album that this band sounds developed enough to merit a larger audience. They're good enough for me at the moment, and I'll give a rating on the weak end of four stars as a result. They'll appeal to the curious listener who likes the piano-rock genre, but if you're looking for something deep and challenging, you'll probably need to drop anchor a little farther out.

ALBUM WORTH:
Believe $.50
Still Life $1.50
Just Glide $1.50
You Are $.50
Mute $1
Dreams $1.50
Everything Is $1.50
Trust $.50
Lights $1.50
Vast $1
TOTAL: $11

Band Members:
Jeff Grey: Vocals, guitar
Skyler Johnson: Piano, organs, ambience
Bret Black: Bass
Christopher Short: Drums

Websites:
http://www.lostoceanmusic.com/
http://www.myspace.com/lostocean

Recommended: Yes

Great Music to Play While: Driving