Drummer Daniele “Danny” Calleri (Embrace Destruction, L’Oceano Sopra, Monalisabay) was recently featured on IDIOTEQ with his new band TOTAL RECALL, and today we’re pleased to give you his newest offering, from a different side of hardcore spectrum. “Kéreon” by Milan based screamo act L’OCEANO SOPRA utilizes moody atmopsheres with math dynamics and harsh textures of noisy screamo, to deliver a highly satisfying offering. Spiced up with an amazing artwork by Hop Wear, “Kéreon” is easy to consume as individual pieces or entirely for a more immersive experience. Today, we celerate another great Italian screamo piece by giving you some more insights about L’OCEANO SOPRA, the new record, the band’s local music scene, and more bands that deserve a good listen.
L’OCEANO SOPRA are: Sté – Vocals (QUARANTADUE), Massimo – Guitar (Eremo, Inferno 9, Liquid clock), Dario – Bass, Danny – Drums (Total Recall, Embrace Destruction).
L’Oceano Sopra was born in 2015, somewhere in the fog of northern Italy plains, as a mix of hardcore, old school breakdowns, emotional spoken word and math-core influences.
After releasing our first self-titled EP in 2017 and playing it live for about a year, we found ourselves in need of a new drummer, and we took the chance to look for a heavier and mature sound, with well–defined hardcore and metal influences: meeting with Danny, and his metalcore background, allowed us to push in the right direction, and after some months spent between studio and live shows, Kéreon was born.
Kéreon means a lot to us. After we released our first EP, truth be told, none of us was really satisfied with it. Just like every band, the first record is more a way to connect and test the waters, see if all the members are on the same page and so on, and we’re not lying, sometimes it was pretty hard. When we finally got our first CD, we all agreed there was like something missing, and some of us felt very bad about it: you start thinking “well, maybe this is not the right project for me after all, maybe it was just not meant to be…”. Then our drummer at that time, Alessandro, decided to quit because of a serious shoulder injury, so the three of us, (Dario, Massimo and Stefano) found ourselves sitting in front of a beer, talking about what to do and, luckily enough, none of us felt like quitting just like that. Then we met Danny, who was the first drummer we played with after Alessandro and, on a musical point of view, it was love at first sight.
It’s probably pretty clear in Kéreon: we had so much fun pushing through a heavier sound and odd time signatures… it was like passing from unsteady gait to running, and doing it together for the first time. That feeling helped us a lot through everyday’s challenges and obstacles in the life of a non-professional over 30 musician (job, family…): we all wanted so bad to get this new album done! It took a lot, but when we listen to it now… Totally worth it! Even though some elements remain as distinctive features of the band (like the amazing cover design by Hop Wear), everything in Kéreon is darker and meaner than in our previous release: the sound, the lyrics, the rhythm section, the vocals… that’s exactly where we wanted to get, and it makes us damn proud!
𝑇𝑟𝑎𝑐𝑘 𝑏𝑦 𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑐𝑘 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑎𝑟𝑦
Kéreon (La Solitudine del Faro): actually, we liked the image of the lighthouse since the beginning: Kéreon (which is a lighthouse in the northern France, completely surrounded by water) was one of the options for the band name. It means both loneliness and hope, facing the unknown and eternal power of nature.
Itaca: this song is basically a follow-up to the previous one. Moreover, it’s about how a long journey can push you to ask yourself who you really are, and about seeking new adventures as a chance to burn your past and re-invent yourself.
I Lupi Nei Muri: this song’s title comes from an amazing book by Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean. Lyrics are about… well, they’re about the ending of a long-term relationship, and being surrounded (or haunted) by memories, literally coming out of your apartment walls like the wolves in the book
Governo L’Ombra: this song was the last one we composed with our former drummer, Alessandro. We love it (especially the beginning), and yet we consider it a “transition” song: if you listen to it, it’s pretty clear we were still trying to move from the punk rock sound of our first EP into heavier stuff. Lyrics are about finding the inner strength to make up for past mistakes.
Nubi: this song is probably one of the main reasons we can’t wait to play live: it might not be the most complicated one we ever wrote, but it has a straight-in-your-face attitude and a “metalish” sound we absolutely love. The title means “Clouds”, and it comes from a poem by Jorge Louis Borges, which is directly quoted in the lyrics.
𝑃𝑙𝑎𝑛𝑠 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑓𝑢𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑒
It’s pretty hard to say now… Of course we’d love to play live, especially with a brand new album to promote! We all think that 50% of being in a band is creating and recording new songs, and the other 50% is live shows. It took us ages to finish the hardest part (our first EP got out in 2017), now we can’t wait to enjoy what comes next! Maybe that’s why we’ve been stalling so far instead of printing the CD right away: we guess we were waiting to see the evolution of the Covid issue. Since it looks like a solution won’t be coming anytime soon, our next step will definitely be printing and shipping the CD for those who ask.
For what concerns printing the physical copies of the album, we would like to thank the two labels that are supporting us, Non ti seguo records and Fresh outbreak records, that enjoyed our new work since the first listen. The first EP we recorded was totally self-produced, so receiving the help of independent labels is a new thing for us. We think that this could give us a boost in the spread of our music in the independent circuit and make it possible to get in touch with other good bands.
𝐶𝑜𝑟𝑜𝑛𝑎𝑣𝑖𝑟𝑢𝑠 𝑙𝑜𝑐𝑘𝑑𝑜𝑤𝑛 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑖𝑡𝑠 𝑖𝑚𝑝𝑎𝑐𝑡 𝑜𝑛 𝑚𝑢𝑠𝑖𝑐
Well, the long term lockdown is putting a lot of pressure on all people who rely on music for a living (live clubs, professional musicians, sound engineers), especially in the italian underground music scene. There are only a few venues left, that survived the past economic crisis and right now I wouldn’t bet to see all of them reopening. We’re quite pessimistic in this sense, but we hope that the government and the community as well will take some countermeasures.
On the other hand, all about music in this moment is passion, and with so much time spent at home there are a lot of very cool projects seeing life from musicians’ home studios. Check out for instance the “Desert Session Home Edition” on bandcamp, if you haven’t yet: an amazing project from a collaboration of more than 100 musicians locked in their house.
As a band we hope that the emergency will end soon to hit the road and promote the new album, and we also hope that in the end this situation will trigger a renewed enthusiasm for live shows and local music: what we can do as a band, is to play again live shows as soon the situation will be in control and unite with other bands in the meantime, to keep supporting the scene all together.
𝑀𝑖𝑙𝑎𝑛 ℎ𝑎𝑟𝑑𝑐𝑜𝑟𝑒 / 𝑠𝑐𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑚𝑜 𝑠𝑐𝑒𝑛𝑒
In Milan and in all the north of Italy there are a lot of good bands, not only in the screamo/hc scene, and you can always find concerts of local bands that are even more interesting than the mainstream ones, like our friends Selvə (IDIOTEQ features HERE), Radura (IDIOTEQ features HERE), THØRN, Metide.
The real problem is that year after year there’s always less curiosity in the audience: it’s very uncommon to find people that go to live shows just to listen to some new music. A lot of venues are closing because of that, and promoting live music is a very difficult job nowadays.
𝑂𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟 𝑎𝑟𝑡𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑠 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑏𝑎𝑛𝑑𝑠 𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑡ℎ 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒
Blame Kandinsky and Tunic are two great bands we had the pleasure to play with.
Some other suggestions coming from each band member are:
• Max: ARTO, in my opinion one of the best italian bands of the latest years, ipnotic and cerebral
• Ste: A band I’d definitely recommend is ILBUIO from Vicenza, Italy: old school punk-hardcore meets At The Drive In, with amazing lyrics. Plus, I never get sick of seeing them live.
• Danny: Lately I’ve been listening to a lot of black metal/doom/sludge, so I’d say Gaahls WYRD and the latest release by Paradise Lost.
• Dario: since long time I’m in love with the music from Sunpocrisy: as heavy as inspiring.
