Between Oceans and their melodic metalcore has rummaged through the Danish underground since 2015. Always keeping their eyes peeled on the current tendencies in modern metal, these five young guys deliver a blend of bone-shattering breakdowns, rifferama, and catchy melodies. A few months ago they presented their first single in two years, ‘FADE’. 

“FADE is the first single after a two-year hiatus with our new clean vocalist Nico. It’s the first song he got to write lyrics on, so it’s fitting it’s the first song we’ll be releasing as a band. It’s a song about overcoming inner and outer demons while focusing on yourself” – the band explains.

Through the years, the quintet has shared the stage with many of the Danish metal scene’s top players such as Ghost Iris, Daze of June, Cold Black, and more. With the release of their debut EP ‘Oxymoron’ in 2018, they amassed over 800k streams across streaming platforms as well as being added to rotation on multiple radio stations and official playlists. For the upcoming debut album, the band has teamed up with producer and engineer Nicklas Sonne (Defecto, TigerSwan, Beneath the Silence), to create an album of international caliber. Here’s our interview with the band!

Beginnings:

Patrick:The metalcore genre has always intrigued me through my teens, and after surfing numerous Facebook groups I teamed up with Dan and a couple of other former members, and the first iteration of Between Oceans was formed. This was all the way back in early 2013, and throughout the years we have had a number of member changes before we ended up with a steady lineup.

Behind the name:

Patrick: I wish there was a better story than this, but there’s actually not a story. We had another name before Between Oceans, but after just one show we all agreed it was terrible. So we decided that we needed a new name and Dan had always had the name ‘Between Oceans’ in his mind and we just went with it.
We can also just say that As I Lay Dying’s album “An Ocean Between Us” was such an influential album, that we came up with our own version of that. It’s a solid album nonetheless.

Inspiration:

Patrick: From a band perspective the bands we draw the most inspiration from are bands like Wage War, The Amity Affliction, and Polaris. We just want to write good solid songs, and we want to incorporate our personal different inspirations into our music.

Dan: I personally love metalcore, but to be honest I don’t really listen to a lot of metalcore anymore. This is probably because I play in a ‘metalcore’ band, so if I also had to listen to the same genre as we play I might get really tired of it. For the time being, I listen to a lot of melodic death/shoegaze-black and rap/trap. I really enjoy bands like Sylosis, The Black Dahlia Murder, and Conjurer at the moment. 
I think I can speak on behalf of everyone when I say that all of us have a really diverse taste in music both spanning from metal to pop as well.

Patrick: For the time being, I’m personally all about Machine Gun Kelly and MOD SUN, which is a bit far from our music, but I believe that drawing inspiration from various artists will benefit our music.

Inspiration behind the upcoming album:

Patrick: The songs off the upcoming album are a collection of songs written over the span of 3-4 years. Most of them were written in the time after our former frontman Anders left the band, which really threw us off guard. I think the songs all present angst, desperation, and the state of mind we have been in for the last couple of years. We have had a lot of ups and downs, but we have come out as a stronger team in the end, which these songs reflect.

Teamwork:

Patrick: We try to work together as much as possible on new material, but what usually happens is that Dan brings a new idea in the form of a riff or a theme, and together with me and Daniel we try to piece together a song around that. Sometimes it takes 6 months, sometimes it takes 2 hours. Our new song FADE was pretty much all written in about a day and was based around a sample off of Splice. 
When the instrumental is somewhat done, it’s usually passed over to Nico and Mikkel and they write lyrics and melody. 
We usually like to make a thorough demo of the song we are working on before we actually start to rehearse it together. 

Dan: Overall I think we are all good at being involved in writing new songs. 

COVID-19:

Patrick: Truth be told, COVID hasn’t had a whole lot of consequences for us. Back in 2019, we agreed that we would take a break from shows in 2020, and focus on what the next chapter of this band should be. So we took a lot of time to just write new music and finish up unfinished songs and actually try and find a new frontman. The biggest consequence has been the lockdown of our rehearsal space, which is where we usually write our music, so we had to adapt to that. 

Fun facts:

Dan: It’s hard to come up with a story that is not too much below the belt, or too much of an inside joke that people wouldn’t find it funny, so here is a sober one… Kind of. When we were playing in Aarhus with Beneath The Silence, Wolves Among Us, and Royal Deceit, 3 other danish metalcore acts, all of the bands decided to storm the stage during Beneath the Silences’ last song. Also, I had the dumb idea that we should do it shirtless, cause why not? So as Beneath The Silence was finishing up their set I decided to moon the entire crowd. I might have been the only one who actually thought it to be funny. Oh well, afterward we went into town and got pretty fucked up.

I also have an… interesting interest in my band members’ genitals. I have a superstition that I have to see every member’s privates. Nico has been the only survivor this far. This won’t stick.