The Ocean is a German extreme metal band that’s been kicking since 2000 and has released 4 albums prior to 2007's Precambrian. The band is essentially the vision of one Robin Staps who is the chief songwriter and along with the band uses a variety of guest musicians and vocalists to create some of the most inspiring music I’ve heard in a while.

The Ocean has been meaning to release a double album for a while now and the last two albums, Fluxion and Aelion were meant to be released as one double album till the commerce of music got in the way and the two discs had to be released separately. Precambrian though is a double album and with the backing of the label has come out like the band intended it to. The first disc titled Hadean/ Archaean and the second titled Proterozoic. There is a concept tying in the whole geological ages with the evolution of human conscious or something like that but it’s a bit complicated and will involve some reading of the booklet (which in a related aside is quite gorgeous).

So basically, Disc 1 or Hadean/ Archaean is the heavy disc. Coming across like a slightly slower melodic Meshuggah/Gojira hybrid the band pound their way through 5 dense, layered and incredibly heavy songs. The band is technical and possesses a wide array of chops which is impressive but what makes this music so captivating is the layer upon layer of music that is present on each of these songs. At first listen it’s easy to dismiss Disc 1 as yet another exercise in atonal tech-metal riffing done before by Meshuggah and Gojira but that is just the surface. It’s the subtle electronics, the grooves, the insanely tight rhythm section and some very tasteful guitar playing that makes these songs a bit special. The songs are all mid-paced with grooves that sound like a drunken giant slowly lurching towards to you. There’s an atmosphere of menace on these songs. Lyrically Staps uses poetry by Charles Baudelaire and Comte De Lautreamont (considered to be the founder of surrealistic poetry) along with his own lyrics.

Disc 2 or Proterozoic showcases the relatively lighter side of the band. Siderian is a short instrumental that opens the disc sounding almost like Ulver on Perdition City with its mellow sax and almost tender guitar lines. Next is the superb though lengthy Rhyacian which is all about building atmosphere as the song explodes for a brief moment around the 7 minute mark before again being content to sail along with subtle electronic and drum and bass workouts. I suppose I could call this doom metal because it’s mostly slow and heavy and quite superb. Orosirian is a crawling lurching monster of a song almost like slowed down Gojira with melody and a sense of despair that most doom bands would give their left nut for before slowly mutating into an acoustic workout that somehow deviates into a violin and vocal piece with the female vocals buried deep in the mix. Slowly the heavy elements come back into the frame as the song once again builds to the doom metal of old. Awesome.

The highlight of the disc though is the instrumental Statherian. Again the band just builds things up slowly and in such a leisurely pace that is captivating. The Ocean is in no hurry to go anywhere and if any proof was needed that sometimes the journey is more fun than reaching the destination itself then this is it. A single guitar line starts proceedings at a gentle and sleepy tone before other instruments start to come into the picture till it culminates at around the 2 minute mark with a superb keyboard melody that drives the song further. The build up from soft to heavy is superbly carried out and the song uses the cello, the viola and the violin to startling effect. For trivia buffs it also uses the Kevin Spacey speech from his 2003 film The Life Of David Gale.

The music is for the most part slow and can get incredibly heavy at times but is also very dynamic in that the interplay between the heavy and the soft, the interplay between  the classical cello/ violin workouts and the electronics is brilliant. This is a songwriter who is utterly fearless when it comes to experimenting and creating a soundscape unlike any other in metal today.

I suppose The Ocean could be classified under the doom metal genre or use the band’s own description of ambient soundtrack doomrock but for music like this all pigeonholing is an insult. It is music that has a foot in metal and borrows ideas and themes from the genre but if ever there was a case of a band transcending genres then this is it. In fact this album transcends musical genres to become a valid and dynamic piece of art all on its own. This is complex, layered, complicated and utterly captivating music.



Label - Metal Blade
Year Of Release - 2007