Nick & Alina - Ocean Wild

One of my favourite words is “edgy”. I’m a big fan of the term and what it implies. For me, it indicates a certain boldness and authenticity that I have always felt is lacking in a conformity-driven society. And in an over-memed culture that always seems to point us to the Kanye Wests and the Taylor Swifts, I have always strived to live an authentic, dare I say even an ‘edgy’ life.

I ticked my first “Jude is edgy” box as a teenager, when I fell in love with emo and pop-punk music. I ditched my university in Minnesota halfway through my undergraduate to go back to Austria and pursue Bachelors/Masters degrees there. I left a full-time teaching position to open my own recording studio and serve as a worship leader and recording artist. For a time, I even dated a girl whose friends affectionately called her “Edgy Reggie”. I prefer the 2003 version of “Your Grace Is Enough”, and I am firmly in Club Sloppy-Wet-Kiss. It’s not something I necessarily try to do, “edgy” is just sort of a vibe I’m drawn to.

So when I heard the Ohio-based duo Nick & Alina’s new single “Ocean Wild”, my edgy-sensors were triggered (sans hashtag).

On first listen, I was instantly drawn in by the larger-than-life spacial quality of Nick & Alina’s sound. The song opens with a hauntingly atmospheric vocal line accompanied by a driving electronic beat. “Ocean Wild”, like much of “Only You”, the EP on which the song appears, is primarily synth-driven, which straight away sets it apart from 90% of Catholic music on the market today.

From the song’s first line, I thought “okay, let’s do this”.

Every river I’ve been down has brought me here
To the shores of Your great heart, where waters run clear,
And You say “fear not, dear one”.
Nick & Alina - Ocean Wild

It’s a song about trust in God’s plan, even when, “and especially when”, adds Alina, it seems we are drowning amidst the struggles and challenges of life. Real talk here, when I am going through real struggles, it kind of irks me when people say things like “God’s got a plan”. It just comes off so often as an empty platitude. “Ocean Wild” speaks directly to the reality of God’s love for us and the need to surrender to His love, to, as Nick & Alina say in the song’s prechorus and bridge, “lay my heart into Your tide”.

This notion of surrender is very much intwined with the personal life behind the artists themselves. Alina and Nick started dating as teens in 2005, and now as a married couple look back on the past 15 years with amazement at the difference they have overcome. College Nick was atheist and College Alina was, in her words, “a Catholic-hating Protestant”. Nick studied opera and loved metal music, whereas Alina played violin and, quite understandably so, started off in bluegrass. (Present-day Jude is very much anticipating the heavy-metal and bluegrass arrangements of “Ocean Wild”. Make it happen, kids.)

Another element of the song that I love is the unique rhyming patterns Nick & Alina use throughout the text. The opening lines sport a clever rhyme with a predictable cadence (brought me here / waters run clear). But this pattern breaks in the prechorus. One of my favorite lyrical phenomena is when a song speaks in complete sentences that break the standard one-line-one-phrase metric. The aforementioned song “Your Grace Is Enough” by Matt Maher has one line, “Great is Your faithfulness, O God” — a completed phrase — followed by the second line “You wrestle with the sinner’s restless heart” — another completed phrase. But the chorus to “Ocean Wild” just keeps going, ignoring the logical line breaks in favor of pushing the image further.

You are an ocean wild,
an untamed wave of
power that pulls me in ‘til I’m
drowning in Your peace and mercy.
Fill me with the ancent waters of
glory, ‘til I’m breathing deeply.
You are, you are an ocean wild.
Nick & Alina - Ocean Wild

This is so wonderfully chaotic, so melodically expansive and so packed with imagery that you get lost in it. The text uses massively strong images — “an untamed wave”, “ancient waters” — and between the word choice, the phrasing and the repeating internal rhyme, you get lost in the magnitude of what Alina is singing about here. It reminds you that it is God’s love, peace and mercy that are constant amidst the chaos.

That chaos has real-life meaning too. “Ocean Wild” was largely inspired by a separate story of trust and surrender.

A close friend of ours was recently diagnosed with cancer that spread quickly and caught everyone by surprise. This friend of ours has always been a vibrant, healthy, and joy-filled soul. She has been a dance and exercise instructor for years. For her health to deteriorate so rapidly was not only a shock but incredibly heart-breaking. Yet, the way she has entirely entrusted her existence into the tide of God’s plan is something we should all hope we can do even in our own circumstances.
Alina De La Torre

These are big stories God is writing in our lives, and I love the way Nick & Alina capture the weight and profundity of this power and articulate it in a manner that so delicately illustrates the care He has for each of his beloved daughters and sons.

I am reminded of a John Crist comedy sketch from a few years back, in which his character, a CCM record label exec, explains that his up-and-coming clients simply need “MORE WATER IMAGES” in their lyrics.

Oh, there are plenty of water images here, but blimey, do they pack a punch.

The song articulates the immensity and gravity of the immense power of the Sacrament of Baptism to contrast the way it's normally understood as being very tame and cute (due to infant baptisms and our general lack of understanding of the power contained in the sacraments). There's nothing tame about the work God does in us when we are baptized.
Nick De La Torre

How fitting too, that as we anticipate this Sunday’s feast of the Baptism of the Lord, Nick & Alina give us an additional medium with which to meditate on our own Baptism, and on the beauty of God’s love for us when we encounter Him there.

Be sure to check out their music online and on Spotify/Apple Music, leave a comment below to share your response to this amazing tune, and until next week, keep rockin’.