Right from the start it's obvious that I Am The Ocean's debut for Uprising, "....And Your City Needs Swallowing", is going to be anything but easily classifiable. The album opener 'Chasing Bears and Reading Scriptures', starts off sounding alot like any given shitty emo band currently permeating radio airwaves. Within the first two minutes of the song though, the band shifts into post-hardcore/pseudo-prog rock territory, with numerous textures coming into play within their musical soundscape.

Elements of bands like Helmet, Quicksand, and even Deftones (at least, more recent stoner-oriented Deftones) are present, on top of a quasi-screamo foundation. At times, they even manage to sound somewhat like Dashboard Confessional, before vocalist Kellen Dopp breaks into a more aggressive screaming delivery. 'Bet'cha your Job' has more of an overall metal feel to it, with controlled bursts of double kick work, on top of more prog oriented guitar work, and alot more screaming than was present in the album's opening track. At least for the first half of the song that is. The latter half of the song is more along the lines of being "experimental" in scope. Which serves to showcase how eclectic the band is, and also better sets the tone for the rest of the album.

'I'm Pretty Tired And I'm Pretty Old' is another track that mixes numerous musical styles to create something altogether different. It's really hard to put a finger on it, as there isn't any one specific style, genre, or sub-genre to link it to. Kellen also once again switches things up vocally, from near blackened screams, to dirty cleans and metalcore barks, he incorporates multiple styles throughout the duration of the song.

"A Going Under" is a great instrumental track, with a laid back vibe to it that's actually almost soothing enough to fall asleep to. 'Scribble Jack' is probably the simplest track on the album, as well as being the shortest overall. The easiest way to describe it is in saying that it's got metalcore written all over it, minus the obligatory melodic clean vocal chorus. It could possibly be a song that was written prior to the band expanding their musical scope. Though 'Randy Wrinkled Travis' also has the same overall vibe to it.

Another thing that sticks out like a sore thumb are the tracks with awkward song titles, which lean more toward the cream of the crap of pop soaked emo bands like Fall Out Boy and Panic! At The Disco. Fortunately, I Am The Ocean is nowhere near as structured, or predictable as either of those two.

Having more in common with bands like Helmet, and even Isis and Deftones, I Am The Ocean have hit on a sound and style that allows them to have an identity amongst the musical muck that's been coming out in recent years. They don't have enough elements of any given single style to fall into a specific category, so it's rather unfortunate that they will without a doubt be erroneously categorized by those that absolutely require a category for any and every band, so as to better associate each band with a group of others.

I Am The Ocean is a band that defies category. With oversaturated scenes like metalcore popping up high numbers of clones daily, it was a good move on the part of the band to stay outside the lines so as to avoid the tag as much as possible. There is too much going on within '...And Your City Needs Swallowing' to simply label it metalcore, or anything else for that matter, just to over-simplify things and be done with it. '...And Your City Needs Swallowing' is recommended for those with more of an open mind, that are looking for something just a little bit different.