Oceans Ate Alaska

Emerging from Birmingham, England in the early 2010s, Oceans Ate Alaska quickly established themselves as an innovative and energetic metalcore ensemble. Within a genre often marked by uniformity, the group distinguished itself through stylistic breadth on its Fearless Records debut Lost Isles, issued in 2015, where classic post-hardcore force merged with melodic emphasis and pronounced progressive leanings. That approach underwent further development on the subsequent albums Hikari in 2017 and Disparity in 2022.

The five-piece formed in 2011 around vocalist James Harrison, guitarists James Kennedy and Adam Zytkiewicz, bassist Mike Stanton, and drummer Chris Turner, drawing its name from the catastrophic mega-tsunami that struck Alaska’s coast in 1958. The resulting sound balances visceral impact with emotional weight, echoing the styles of Born of Osiris, Asking Alexandria, and Between the Buried and Me. Lost Isles arrived in early 2015 on Fearless Records. The band then performed across the entire 2016 Vans Warped Tour before entering the studio in December to begin work on its second album. “Covert” appeared as a single in May 2017, followed in July by Hikari, an album shaped by Japanese cultural influences and the first to feature new vocalist Jake Noakes after James Harrison’s departure in late 2016.

Harrison rejoined for the 2020 single “Metamorph,” after which Noakes announced his exit. The track joined the expansive singles “New Dawn” and “Nova” on Disparity, the group’s dystopian-themed third album, released in 2022.