German outfit Oceans are ramping things up in preparation for their debut album, The Sun and the Cold, which will be released through Nuclear Blast on January 10. With an ambitious blending of modern death metal, 90's nu-metal and post-rock, the band is making waves through Europe with a refreshingly new sound that singer/guitarist Timo Rotten says has transferred well onto their upcoming release.


"It's quite a ride", he said. "We have a mixture going on of a lot of nu-metal mixed with death metal and post-rock which is as weird as it sounds (laughs). I dunno, I think the album is an amazing ride. We have worked on it for close to four years and really tried to make it perfect. The first impression you leave will stick so we wanted to make the first album really good".


Rather than sprinkle the influences through the entire album, Oceans take the harder approach by working them all through individual songs, creating a sound and dynamic that works surprisingly well.


"We basically mix everything into one song, which isn't as... it's not that easy to do; that's what I found writing those songs for the last couple of years - but it's fun which is what I love so much about writing music for this band. We have this creative freedom that we didn't have in the bands we played in before who were already labelled into a specific genre so there was nothing we could change about that. Now, with Oceans we have this blank slate and we started from scratch and that's what makes it so fun for us to write this music. We have no boundaries".


In the full interview, Tomo talks more about the album, goes through the song-writing process, talks about new single 'Paralysed', discusses the lyrical content of the album, goes back to the beginning of Oceans and how they practised for over three years before officially becoming a band, releasing an EP through Nuclear Blast without even playing a live show and more.