Hailing from the artistic and musically cultural hub of Berlin, The Ocean are certainly no ‘ordinary’ band. Founded in 2000 by guitarist and principal songwriter Robin Staps, the collective have released a staggering amount of fine music, with around forty different musicians lending their talents to the cause over the years. Always an outlet for extreme experimentalism, The Ocean explores both the light and dark sides of music as eloquently as anyone else in the business, and to catagorise their sound into any one genre is impossible.
They float majestically between influences of post-rock and metal with distinct progressive elements, and this time around lean vastly towards using a strong influence of electronica on Holocene (Pelagic Records), a record which is the final chapter in their decade-long conceptual quadology of releases, exploring themes of palaeontology, which began with Pelagial in 2013.
And where their previous album Phanerozoic II: Mesozoic/Cenozoic (2020) left off with the dark synth-wave inspired ‘Holocene’, this album of the same name continues the theme as a John Carpenter–esque soft juddering eighties synth builds with warm bass and the vocals of the Maynard James Keenan sounding Loic Rossetti providing a distinct Puscifer vibe. ‘Boral’ continues and builds, eventually dropping a crunching guitar riff to remind us of The Ocean’s heavier side, before ‘Sea Of Reeds’ returns to the darker side of chill-out, opening with an eerie piano with a delicate warm haze bubbling underneath, before the song grows around an elegant bassline and a Tobias Forge sound on Rosetti’s clean vocals.
And mirroring the journey of a long river flowing out to sea, the current of Holocene begins to change with ‘Atlantic’, as creaking trip-hop electronics meander with another sumptuous bass-line, through to an energetic climax as heavy guitars drop with the rawer vocal sound of post-metal beginning to submerge from the depths. This stylistic change accentuates on ‘Subboreal’, which provides the perfect blend as a deep electronic thudding overture, contorting with a beautifully toned distorted guitar, before the first real powerfully delivered screams of the record make the hairs on your neck stand to attention. The track climaxes with gloriously furious machine gun djent style riffing, pulling the record deep into unchartered waters.
And as your vibing on the heaviness, The Ocean once again changes the course of the Holocene journey, as long bass pads and an uncomfortable shuffling, morph into a really strong song that is pieced together around another funky bassline, and with the gorgeous vocals of Karin Park, creating a Muse-like feel. Before all-out chaos ensues, Rosetti repeatedly sings the line “Don’t trip on the bright lights”, before emotionally screaming the vocals as the sound explodes into cacophony and one hell of a post-metal groove.
Once again, in complete contrast to what’s come before, The Ocean bring us down again with ’Parabiosis’ taking on more of an avant-garde direction. With Ghost-like clean singing once again building to a heavy riff, this time with horns teasing deep in the mix. And then the journey ends with ‘Subatlantic’, and instead of teetering out, the record delivers crunching down-tuned distortion, djent riffing, and vocals blending a heavy Mastodon and Cult Of Luna sound, all combining to absolutely leaving you wanting more, and inspiring a long methodical dive into their back catalogue.
This is an outstanding work of art, and I can only implore you to make yourselves comfortable, and allow the time to fully immerse in the pleasure of enjoying this record from start to finish.
Buy the album here:
9 / 10
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