The Ocean Collective (sometimes just referred to just as The Ocean) have shared the second single from their massive new album Phanerozoic I, coming soon from Metal Blade Records. ‘Devonian: Nascent’ is a killer track and features Jonas Renkse of Katatonia on vocals. Jam it out now.
Jonas Renkse commented:
“Robin approached me for a guest spot already in 2005, and I really wanted to be part, but at that time we were in the studio ourselves recording ‘The Great Cold Distance’ so I felt I had too much on my mind. We have met after that and talked a little about doing something and now it finally happened. ‘Devonian: Nascent’ became a mammoth track without ever losing its initial melancholy.”
Robin Staps of The Ocean commented:
“We sent Jonas the track, and what we got back as a “demo” was almost identical with what ended up as the final version on the record. Jonas has a perfect and intuitive understanding of our music, there was no need to explain anything. He came up with his own vocal parts and lyrics, and everything just fit perfectly from the start. Katatonia’s ‘The Great Cold Distance’ was an important album for me and for The Ocean, it was one of the first albums where heavy, low-tuned guitars and clean vocals next to one another were actually working out for me, personally. It was an album that made me reconsider my opinion about clean vocals in metal, and that forged my own desire to look for a vocalist for The Ocean who could also deliver cleans.”
Each of The Ocean Collective’s releases has proven a profoundly immersive experience, with an unrivalled attention to detail – something which becomes particularly apparent in the award-winning packaging: for the lavish acrylic boxset that came with 2013’s Pelagial, over 10.000 acrylic layers were individually silk-screen printed and manually assembled. That which accompanied 2010’s double album Heliocentric / Anthropocentric was particularly unique, its gatefold sleeve featuring rotating gold-foiled PVC dials screwed on top of it. Phanerozoic will not fall short of its predecessors: Phanerozoic will come in a trifold (LP) / digipak (CD) with die cuts through multiple layers, creating a 3D effect; topped off by metallic inks and a blind embossing emulating a rock structure.
Phanerozoic I: Palaeozoic track listing
1. The Cambrian Explosion
2. Cambrian II: Eternal Recurrence
3. Ordovicium: The Glaciation of Gondwana
4. Silurian: Age of Sea Scorpions
5. Devonian: Nascent
6. The Carboniferous Rainforest Collapse
7. Permian: The Great Dying
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