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It sounds like the plot of a big budget summer blockbuster or an open-world video game.

A faceless entity travels through time and bears witness to man’s effect on the Earth as celestial and eternal beings known as “The Ascendants” ponder whether or not to save the planet. This story powers Oceano’s fourth full-length album and first for Sumerian Records, Revelation. Picking up where 2015’s critically acclaimed Ascendants left off, the Illinois band—Adam Warren [lead vocals], Scott Smith [lead guitar], Chris Wagner [bass], and Matthew Kohanowski [drums]—expand their patented deathcore punch with intriguing atmospherics and a thought-provoking narrative that’s as deep as it is dark.

“All of the songs are the recollections of a separate being as he travels through a portal of alternate timelines,” explains Adam. “Each track is another revelation that he’s viewed. ‘The Ascendants’ have been watching society grow and lightly influencing it but allowing humans free will for the most part. In turn, what they’ve seen is humanity basically deplete the planet to a near state of destruction. In these vignettes, they are deciding whether or not it’s worth their intervention and subsequent salvation. The traveler carries this message.”

Oceano’s ability to encode such a transmission within the framework of tight, taut, and technical heavy music remains a key to their success since 2006. Over the past decade, the group has ignited a diehard fan base. Ascendants would cumulatively amass over 3 million Spotify plays, while the quartet received features from Alternative Press, Metal Hammer, Metal Injection, Brave Words, and more. They shared the stage on marathon tours with the likes of Suicide Silence, Whitechapel, Acacia Strain, and many others. Fan favorite cuts like “District of Misery” went on to generate 3.8 million YouTube views and counting as the diehard faithful continued to grow.

The boys raise the bar yet again with Revelation. In 2016, they entered The Nook Recording Studio with producer and longtime collaborator Nicholas Nativo in New Lennox, IL. Tirelessly pushing to progress, they emerged with Revelation.

“The Nook has become like our second home,” says Adam. “It’s where we recorded Ascendants and actually the place I did my first recordings with Oceano. It holds a cool history. The rebirth of the band began there. I think we captured some of that spirit all over again.”

The first single “The Great Tribulation” bursts out of the gate with neck-snapping riffs, cataclysmic screams, and a reprieve of aural darkness. “This is one of the final revelations as far as the story goes,” he elaborates. “Certain humans have earned their place on a supplemental planet, and the music is chronicling their experience. This is the first human colony since the destruction. It’s basically the first true new frontier since the Americas were discovered. The song is technically where our next album will pick up!”

Meanwhile, the title track focuses on a moment of awareness for the narrator, breaking the proverbial fourth wall. “This is his realization that he’s experiencing these revelations and has taken it upon himself to become a prophet for humanity,” adds Adam. “He’s seen enough to gauge that there’s importance to it all.”

At the end of the day, Oceano espouse an urgent message that continues to elevate them within the landscape of heavy music.

“I hope when people hear this album they connect with my lyrics and the message behind it all—which is to be more aware of our environment and how to preserve it,” he leaves off. “That was the key thing that I had on my mind even since the last album. I want to instill a positive movement in our world, fans, and whoever stumbles upon the album.”

Car Bomb’s habit of systematically abusing ideas also dominates its member’s professions/hobbies of computer programming, graphic design, astronomy, and quantum physics. “In order to excel in these fields, you have to be a control freak and an obsessive compulsive” Greg states. “These personality traits create struggle and chaos in the writing process, which drives the conception of a song. We wind up with ideas that we’d never think of.” Meticulous dissection also finds its way into Car Bomb’s lyrical themes. When asked about ‘Rid’, Mike explains “It’s about analyzing and picking at the things about yourself repeatedly to the point where there’s nothing left. You wind up destroying who you are.”

The inception of Car Bomb started as early as the year 2000, when two bands, Neck and Spooge, shared the same rehearsal space underneath a butcher shop in Rockville Center, New York. Jon recalls, “We called it the Dungeon. It was a hot and muggy cement basement with no windows. Basically, a hole in the earth created for slaughtering animals...but ‘metal’ bands got to jam down there – go figure!!” The two bands found themselves frequenting the other’s rehearsals and developed a mutual respect for their music. Greg and Mike wanted Neck to break out of the conventional and over saturated hardcore scene by being different. Greg recollects, “We all really dug what Faith No More did, so we tried to emulate that, except heavier and more progressive.” With three releases on various labels and five years of shows up and down the east coast, Neck had established themselves as one of Long Island’s most unique and brutal acts. On the other side of the Dungeon, bassist Jon and drummer Elliot were a part of Spooge, a more technical and stylistic band. Influences of Zappa and early Mr. Bungle can be heard throughout their complex and at most times hilarious epics.

Despite the fact that both bands had broken out of the traditional molds of metal and hardcore, the need to play heavier and more complex music drove Jon to seek out other musicians. In 2002, he recruited Greg to play in a project that would develop into Car Bomb. Jam sessions commenced and would continue for eighteen months with various lineup changes. Mike and Elliot were eventually added to the group and rounded out the final line up. In early 2004, Car Bomb’s first recording began in the house that Greg and Jon currently occupy. With this recording completed, Car Bomb focused on getting their music out to as many people as possible. Their tireless efforts saw them handing out thousands of promotional demos at hundreds of shows in the greater New York City area and the annual New England Metal and Hardcore Fest.

The band’s self-sufficiency also saw them compiling a three-song sampler that they would mail out to labels and magazines world-wide. The sampler was met with favorable reviews, being described by long-standing metal magazine, Metal Maniacs as “technologically-advance Godzilla-like abacus laying waste to everything in site; post-apocalyptic, industrialized chaos in it path, swarms of rabid calculator-creatures swarming all survivors; this ain’t some indie-rock pocket-protector-core reiterating blues scales too fast. Supreme tech-metal explosiveness comes to life with this NYC outfit”.

In 2006, Car Bomb began work on their first new material since the release of their self-titled demo. Blistering tracks “M^6” and “Pieces of You” came together effortlessly and laid the groundwork for what will be the band’s first full-length record, Centralia. The band’s confidence in the track “M^6” lead them to approach a good friend and director Jeremy Jackson (UNEARTH, CANNIBAL CORPSE, AS I LAY DYING, BRIAN POSEHN) to shoot their first-ever music video on location in New York City along with the Filmcore crew in the late summer of 2006. Car Bomb also made plans to release “M^6” and “Pieces of You” on a split 7” with New Jersey’s Burnt By The Sun through Relapse Records. Through the 7” dealings, Relapse caught a glimpse of what would be Centralia’s vicious blast of wildly technical and progressive modern metal and signed the band in the Fall of 2006.