Despite featuring more melodic lines than the previous one, this year’s As I Lay Dying album is powerful and blast-beat. You know, detailed reviews considering each song are often boring and I hate doing them, but this time it looks like a proper thing to do, because “An Ocean Between Us” is at least a double dimensional album and to me it’s a sign of a future metamorphosis. The opener “Separation” starts off slowly with some kind of vinyl-like popping and melancholic guitar chords. Expectations for a bombastic burst soon prove to be completely futile as the vocals enter “Nothing Left” almost seamlessly. No surprise breaks, no build ups, no contrast seeking. From the first track one can say that AILD obviously have tried to deliver some sort of an In Flames album. And this tendency goes through the next songs - the self-titled and “Within Destruction” - with the latter showing a little bit more Americana hardcore guts, but still quite Swedish in approach. There comes “Forsaken”. It’s utterly Scandinavian. Smells like winter, snow and sadness. And this is also the breaking point of the album, because no matter how AILD try to cut it fast and brutal again in the next couple of songs, there’s still this thought in the back of your mind. Let’s say it, from now on your mind has been made up. “I Never Wanted” and “Wrath Upon Ourselves” only add to it. Strangely, the final song “This Is Who We Are” is not that epic to close the last page with class except the final fifty-something seconds, drenched with atmospheric piano. For me, the weakest aspect of AILD has always been the generic growling of the singer who almost ruins the pleasure of listening, but in the current release - much to my joy - they put lots of real singing (despite the mediocre quality of it) and enhance their style musically. Arguably, that’s not THEIR style, of course.