Pelagial

Over the years, Robin Stap's The Ocean has been experimenting with concept albums about the creation of the world and theological theories. For their latest effort The Ocean plunges into the depths of (ironically) the ocean, and the human conscienceness. I feel safe to say that this album must be the most solid release the band put out to date.

What impresses me the most about this album, is the fact that The Ocean plays all these different genres so naturally. Whereas some tracks on Heliocentric and Anthropocentric sounded a little clumsy and unnatural, Pelagial sees the band blending a broad variety of styles with sheer perfection. They rip out blistering fast riffs, progressive passages and doomy sludge destruction all with real comfort.

Whether it's the Neurosis-like bonebreaking track Demersal or the Mastodon-ish Bathyalpelagic II, this album never ceazes to amaze me. The first few verses of Mesopelagic even remind me of Pain of Salvation from time to time. All these styles are blended into a new Ocean-sound that was founded in the previous two albums. But on Pelagial the band has perfected their new sound.

Robin Staps really writes progressive metal in a way that does not bore the listener with overexaggerated technical wankery. The songs are throwing the listener from left to right while gradually dragging him or her down to the very bottom of the ocean. An absolute must-have for any progressive metal fan out there.

On Mesopelagic we can hear Loïc Rosetti singing 'from here on there's only one direction: down!' I really hope this doesn't count for The Ocean. In my opinion they have recorded the best metal album of 2013, but what´s harder than successing such an amazing record?

Highlights:
- Abyssopelagic II: Let Them Believe
- Mesopelagic: Into the Uncanny
- Bathyalpelagic II: The Wish in Dreams

After The Ocean released their experimental metal masterpiece "Precambrian", bandleader & guitarist Robin Staps finally settled on a consistent lineup for the group, notably deciding on Loic Rosetti for vocals and changing the collective into a standard metal band. Along with this shift in band philosophy, a shift came in overall sound for The Ocean. Immediately after monster-length crushing symphonic tracks in "Precambrian", fans were treated to softer, more accessible works in "Heliocentric", followed by "Anthropocentric", which improved this sound but still contained issues with presenting an album with consistently strong quality tracks. It seemed after two albums that were not quite as strong as their past efforts, The Ocean's best had already passed them.

Pelagial takes that idea and throws it out the window. Quality Ocean material is back. Again, they provide a concept album, with the idea of going deeper and deeper into the zones of the ocean as parallels between interpersonal struggle, all backing some impressive epic progressive sludge songwriting. The tracks flow from one to another effortlessly reinforcing the concept. It lacks the more experimental surprises found in their earlier albums, but replaces them with symphonic structures, varying song sections, and a multitude of energetic, epic riffs.

This is evidenced in the first actual track, "Mesopelagic: Into the Uncanny", where a winding guitar melody builds, drums drop in more and more, distortion becomes more a factor, the vocalist becomes louder and louder until Rosetti's vocal melodies charge in for a triumphant climax. This description likely brings to mind lots of post-rock ideas, and post-rock is definitely an element of The Ocean's music, but the song is definitely of a more progressive metal variety, with lots of high energy that would be perfect to begin a show. These sort of dynamics are all over the place, notably in the 9-minute "Hadopelagic II: Let them Believe", which begins with a rather alternative-sounding 6/8 jazzy groove, contains beautiful piano, but often twists into pounding sludgy riffs and sharp guitar lines.

Dynamics are never more prominent than in "Bathyalpalegic I: Impasses", which begin with harsh growls and crushing guitar sounds, until everything but a sole piano drops out, which Rosetti uses to come in and deliver a few rather personal emotional vocals. Cymbals and guitars suddenly crash in and drone on the beautiful melodies, which cues once again another driving, groovy metal section.

There are many parts that finally recall the more beloved older Ocean material. "Demersal: Cognitive Dissonance" is a lengthy, symphonic track that would fit perfectly in the second Precambrian disc, while "Bathyalpalegic II: The Wish in Dreams" is a highly energetic mosh- inducing song reminscent of the first disc. The final track is an absolutely crushing drone doom track that represents the absolute black, cold seafloor at immense pressures. Despite this description, the production is very clean and modern for a sludge metal album. Often the sound is very comparable to Mastodon's "Crack The Skye", though without the psychedelic and progressive keyboard influence. The story of that album is much clearer than the more abstract concept found on Pelagial, but the comparison remains.

Overall, while this doesn't quite reach the peaks found on Precambrian, Pelagial is a beautiful progressive sludge metal masterpiece. If one were to define modern Ocean as heliocentric onward, Pelagial is likely to be the masterpiece of the modern Ocean. The concept is well executed, the songs develop masterfully, the riffs are strong and heavy, and all put together it is a testament of what the Ocean is still capable of. Definitely best for fans of sludge, and will likely bring back those who walked away from the band in the past.

Yeah, it’s more of the same.

Just figured I’d come right out and say it up front instead of taking four paragraphs to get to it. But like the old saying goes, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. And fix it The Ocean don’t.

The concept behind Pelagial is that every song is named after the different layers of the ocean (descending from Pelagial all the way down to Benthic) with the tuning and lyrical content drifting on doooooooowwwwwnnnn while occasionally becoming appropriately violent. It works for the most part, but I think it might go over a lot of listeners' heads if they weren’t either A) informed ahead of time, or B) an oceanographer. Betcha know which one of those I was.

Instrumentally, Pelagial don't seem to stray too far from the usual formula of Mariana Trench scraping bass lines and wispy, progressive riffs with a mixture of ADD-addled drum work versus slow and jazzy fills and thrills. Like I said, nothing really new here.

But the fact of the matter is it don't amount to shit when it’s as good as this. The progressive side of The Ocean always seems to outshine the sludge/core aspect. This has been true from Fluxion to Anthropocentric and remains to be just as true in Pelagial. The addition of an instrumental version of Pelagial is a nice touch, albeit a useless one since the “normal” version is superior due to Loïc Rossetti's mastery of the hardcore bellow and mild clean vocals.

It’s powerful, massive, rolling, deep, and constantly changing while ultimately staying the same. It’s The goddamned Ocean.

Vast, deep and powerful are only three of the infinite adjectives that can be used to describe 70% of the Earth's make up. There is a scope to the world's oceans that is hard to wrap ones mind around. They are their own universe within the world in which they cover. At any given time, seas of soothing calm can transform into explosive vistas unharnessed by mankind and depths of which are still unexplored. Fittingly enough the same can be said of Germany's Ocean Collective.

Founded in 2000 by guitarist and creative force, Robin Staps, The Ocean has created some of metal's most unique and genuine soundscapes. Throughout it's existence, the band has been comprised of various musicians of the highest caliber, and have released progressive, post-metal works of ingenuity and sheer talent unlike any of their peers. The Ocean are raw, beautiful, and deep with passion and unbridled in their ability to create. Recently, the band as whittled itself into a group of five core artists still led by Staps. Three years after releasing their last full length, Anthropocentric, The Ocean have re-emerged from the depths with Pelagial.

Pelagial is a prime example showcasing this band's sheer musical capabilities and emotional depths. Originally, it was conceived to be released as a purely instrumental album after singer Loic Rossetti had taken a hiatus from the band. Gradually, it was decided to feature singing on only a couple of songs but, in the end, morphed into a full album complete with vocals. Pelagial was released as a double album with the vocal performance and the instrumental version.

Cutting to the chase, Pelagial, is just simply amazing, not only in execution, but also design. The record plays forward with the theme of being on the surface and gradually descending into deeper realms as it continues on. There are no breaks in the duration of the record as each song ebbs and flows into each other seamlessly creating an atmosphere of how big of a work the overall album is in scope. It does not, however, feel like one long song as the transitions are subtle and gentle while the bulk of the songs themselves are powerful enough to give them their own definition. This is credited to the band's amazing ability to envision and produce.

The intro song, "Epipelagic" sets the tone and begins the journey with a meditative feel featuring aquatic sound samples, piano and harp loosely played with a faint orchestral background which leads us into the bulk of the album as it blends into "Mesopelagic: The Uncanny". The Ocean guides the listener through a smooth sounding, groove inspired introduction with clean singing before quickly giving way to the band's signature heavy post-metal sound and yelled vocals. As the album progresses, the band very nicely balances the passages of mellow and heavy, never straying from a fresh and innovated sound that continually commands the listener's attention. "Bathyalpelagic I: Impasses" is an album highlight and one of the best songs The Ocean has ever composed as it is filled outright with a beautifully intense passion ending with the question, 'How much control do we have over what we wish for?'. All aspects of this release are stellar from the musicianship to the packaging. Pelagial entwines superb compositions with elements of progressive rock and metal performed with top-notch talent, thoughtful lyrics/themes all wrapped in an ingenious production worthy of any music lover's appreciation.

This is a very hard review to write as trying to encapsulate the greatness of this record is nearly impossible. In the end, The Ocean's performance on Pelagial is fully embodied and masterful. On their forward path of progression, the band continues to perfect their music much to the amazement and awe to those who listen. Pelagial is The Ocean's strongest release to date, a pinnacle for the band and a masterpiece. However, just as the same goes for the Earth's vast and powerful seas, there are constant movements and depths yet to be discovered.
***Originally written for and by www.deathportal.net

In a time when the post-metal boom is reaching its ebb, bands generally considered its flag bearers have chosen either to jump ship (Pelican), break up (Isis, notably after stating they achieved everything they could) or stick to tread ground (Neurosis). It seems the art of post-metal itself, after a glorious period of pushing every conceivable boundary, is coming to its logical end as a progression. The sole exception to this general trend being the brazen and earth shaking innovation displayed by Cult of Luna on Vertikal, but that's for another review.

So how would The Ocean, a band that generally embodied excess and innovation with its double album assaults in a genre already violently innovative face up to the trend? Essentially, what they've done here is conceive an album that reconciles both schizophrenic sides of the band and aim for a more streamlined sound characteristic of post-metal. While this might be seen as anathema to the band's ethos itself, they really proceed with it in such a way that they don't lose any of the bells and whistles that made their sound so compelling. What it really is, is an economy of style - in consolidating their sound, The Ocean says much more with a lot less at their disposal. Commendable, and perhaps owing in part to the devolution of the collective into a regular five-piece band.

Now it is my contention that The Ocean, despite their extravagances were a band sonically more of the Pelican mold than Isis. The band, at the heart of it, very much retained conventional sludge-isms, rather than making it a subset of their more expansive stylings like Isis. You could easily liken The Ocean at their heaviest to say, Mastodon whereas that would be fairly impossible to say of the likes of Isis. Considering that, the album at many times actually sounds like what could have been if the style Mastodon's 'Crack in the Skye' was put in far more capable hands. Don't let the understated, melodic bits lull you into thinking otherwise - this has riffs that could hold its own with the heavyweights. But as with the genre itself, its really the contrasts that make it what it is. There's some genuinely sublime parts that blend in seamlessly with their heavier counterparts, highlighted most with tasteful flourishes of the piano which regretfully become less common as the record progresses. Even when a track such as 'Hedopalagic II : Let Them Believe' (Gaudy titles aside) rolls in and stays clean for most of its 9 minute duration, it hardly ever fails to capture and keep your attention.

I've read that the album was initially written to be completely instrumental and the vocals are a cosmetic addition. Well, hearing this, you really couldn't tell either way - and the vocals do much to accentuate the strengths of the band's instrumentation. Some would be averse to the overt clean stylings of the vocals at times - but I see such criticisms as incredibly myopic and hardly deserving of consideration at best. No band should be pigeonholed into straining every growl to earn kvlt kiddie points from the audience. Of course, there's always the instrumental version. Coming to the concept itself, the maritime theme of the entire album - though you'd think a band called The Ocean would have come to this a whole lot sooner - I find Isis' Oceanic a far more compelling evocation of the same theme. Though that does little to detract from the album itself, unless you're bent on listening to the album hoping for a whale song to somehow force its way into the music. The lyrics, as with any other Ocean release, are fairly thought provoking and worth the read. All in all, the only real fault I can find with this (besides needless nitpicking) is that it only lasts 53 minutes. But restraint is what makes this album what it is - and its hard to see how the band could come up with a more concise and effective rendition of their sound. Highly recommended.

Highlights - Honestly, the album is only entirely meaningful when heard as a whole. Dissecting it track by track would be doing a great disservice to it. Set aside an hour for this, you won't regret it.

The Ocean have never been ones to rest on their laurels; mastermind Robin Staps has always striven to explore different concepts and musical types within each of his albums. Pelagial, their sixth full-length release, continues in a similar vein. The album comes packaged in two versions: one with vocals and one without. For the purposes of this review, I will only be mentioning the version with vocals.

These German wunderkinds have been hard at work for the past three years since their last effort, the twin albums Heliocentric and Anthropocentric, which are an examination of mankind's less than stellar relationship with organized religion. For this latest release the band has looked inward and down... way, way down.

The theme of this album is, on the surface, about the ocean. Now stay with me for a minute. At some point the Ocean (band) had to do this; I mean come on, it's their name and there are few things quite as immense as the ocean (body of water.) However, this album isn't only about a journey to the abyss below, but also into the psyche and the wants, wishes and desires we neither know about nor physically act upon. The album, much like the ocean, starts out very smooth and light, but as we go deeper into all of the oceanic zones (mesopelagic, bathyalpelagic, abyssopelagic, hadopelagic, demersal, and the deepest of them all, benthic) we're taken on a sonic journey that creates an understanding of the utter blackness, crushing pressure and claustrophobia of not only the deepest layers of the ocean, but the deepest layers of our own selves.

The music itself mixes a lot of different metal sounds together with varying degrees of success. Throughout the album there are shades of Mastodon, Opeth, Meshuggah and more, but, as is customary with the Ocean, their trademark sound is never washed out and they always end up sounding like themselves. The album is only split up into tracks for tradition's sake; the music is one long composition with several different movements throughout. Epipelagic, the beginning of the experience, opens with ocean sounds, harps, stringed instruments and piano, all of which combine to create a rather soothing and pleasant experience much like you might hear from a new-age artist, but fear not, for things quickly take a turn towards heavy once we leave the surface and journey below. As I said before, we're going all the way to the bottom, and as such with every movement the music becomes heavier, louder, more spaced out and, towards the end, churning and apocalyptic to match the bleakness and unbearable pressure at the bottom of the ocean.

The first few minutes of this album are sonically similar their previous release, with a more emotional core and hard rock-oriented sound; Mesopelagic spends its first two minutes building in speed and heaviness until Loïc Rossetti's vocals enter, where the song takes on a much more straightforward structure. It isn't until we enter the Bathyalpelagic zone that the Ocean's crushing guitar and Loïc's guttural screams become a more important part of the music. Part I, this movement's highlight, includes Loïc's sweeping and powerful vocals and an extended riff that is undeniably influenced by Meshuggah's style. As we sink deeper into the Abyssopelagic zone the music becomes more ominous and foreboding, with strings, more samples of ocean sounds and sparse bass strumming to emphasize the quiet and depth, minor key guitar picking with mournful vocals overlaid, and a final swelling of the music until we sink even further into the Hadopelagic zone, which includes the highlight of the album, a nine-minute movement that takes its time to unfold and progress, but includes everything but the kitchen sink in terms of the Ocean's musical repertoire. When we finally reach the bottom, the Benthic zone, the music is at its slowest and most crushing.

Each member of this band is playing at a superior level; Loïc Rossetti, who I already knew had an impressive set of pipes, truly shows out on this album with a clean singing range and power I never knew he possessed, and screams that range from staccato barks to angry screams and powerful growls. Robin Staps, the sole songwriter and composer on this album, is in top form both playing guitar and writing music, as well as Jona Nido, his other guitarist who has some impressive licks in store. The rhythm section, consisting of drummer Luc Hess, departing bassist Louis Jucker and newcomer Chris Breuer add an impressive anchor for the melody. The bass is an ever-present rumble with complex musical passages that are interesting and entertaining, but it never makes itself too apparent nor falls into obscurity (thank the mix and mastering for that.) The drums are also complex and fun to listen to, and Luc Hess never consigns himself to simply keeping the beat, adding fills and different patterns here and there. Speaking of the mixing, it's what you should expect by now from an Ocean album; Robin Staps chooses not to get caught up in the loudness wars, which is a very good thing for the dynamic range of the music. The vocals and guitars are squarely on top of the bass, while the punchy dynamics of the drums keeps you in the moment with the music.

All of that said, there are a few things that prevent this album from reaching a level similar to that of Precambrian, the Ocean's very best release to date. The main problems are that the Ocean's sound has evolved somewhat, but it is still firmly rooted in the Heliocentric days; however, much of the more slow, classically inclined passes that Heliocentric and Anthropocentric possessed are either blended into the run of the album or eliminated altogether, so no more slow songs out of left field. Also, in some areas of the Bathyalpelagic movement it seems that Staps tried to experiment with the sound but ended up with some more-or-less tacked on passages; Meshuggah figures heavily in two key areas, and there is also a strange Mastodon/Opeth hybrid sound going on at one point, which, while different, isn't bad; it's just that it feels very tacked on. These things should not deter the hardcore Ocean fan from picking this album up. As one listens to the album over and over the music opens itself up and different things are noticed; things which may not have been the first few times around, so there is definite value in repeated listens.

As things stand, Pelagial will not topple Precambrian from its spot at the top of the Ocean's discography, but in terms of their new sound and era as a stable five-piece band it seems they have begun to find themselves. If this pattern of progression continues, then I expect more delightful things to come. Pelagial is an excellent listen and I trust it will find a good place in your collection. I hope you enjoy your trip to the bottom. I'll be sure to meet you there.