The fortunes of the concept album have waxed and waned over the years, often dismissed as a progressive conceit despite the fact that a conceptual device can provide an artist with considerable scope for sonic exploration. Certainly the Ocean Collective have sought, and found, considerable inspiration, basing their works in both anthropology and geology over the years with notable success. With Phanerozoic I : Palaeozoic, the band have returned to what is, arguably, their most astonishing album – Precambrian – to provide a direct sequel. A double set (the second half set for release in 2019), Palaeozoic offers up seven tracks that offer an intense, challenging experience.
A gentle, cello-washed piano refrain, The Cambrian Explosion is a mere teaser for the album, slowly building in intensity as cruelly distorted bass creeps into the mix, a precursor to Cambrian II: eternal recurrence. Built around an almighty riff, albeit retaining the haunting melody of its forebear, Cambrian II sees Loic Rossetti unleashing his mighty roar as the slow moving barrage of riffs creeps forward across the landscape. That is not to suggest, however, that this is mere bludgeon for the sake of it. Everything The Ocean do has a purpose, and the swathes of melody that cut through searing riffs provide moments of calm, the music evoking a tumultuous period that saw life diversify and evolve. The rapid evolution of life on earth continues unchecked as the band plunge into the brutal Ordovicium: The glaciation of Godwana, another piece that sees Robin Staps (guitars) and Paul Seidel (drums) perform miraculous feats as they bend time and space with riffs that seem to implode around the listener. Short and searing, it gives way to the airy Silurian : Age of Sea Scorpions, a melodic beast with churning, djentish riffs underpinning it. A perfect example of the richly textured approach the band take to song-writing, Silurian incorporates electronic elements, piano, cello and jazzy time signatures into a beguiling, coherent whole that is as mesmerizing as it is exhilarating. Few bands are this inventive, and fewer still can weave such remarkable sonic tapestries without losing focus – The Ocean Collective, however, are masters at this sort of thing, and they make it all seem effortless.
The album’s longest track, at just over eleven minutes in length, Devonian : Nascent features a guest appearance from Katatonia’s Jonas Renkse, who crafted the lyrics and vocal melodies independently having received the demo track from Ocean main-man Robin. The collaboration is an interesting one, not least because Robin credits Katatonia masterpiece The Great Cold Distance as having been instrumental in his re-evaluating the role of clean vocals in metal. The results are devastating. A perfect pairing, Jonas brings his sweeping vocal melodies to the piece, the band allowing the music to ebb and flow before Loic emerges, razing everything that has gone before with a blistering vocal performance that leaves the listener shattered in its wake. A monstrous centerpiece to the album, Devonian : Nascent stands as one of the finest single tracks The Ocean Collective have yet penned and the shift from dreamy beauty to shattered-earth nightmare is tangible in its fury. After so epic a track, The Ocean wisely choose not to try to compete, offering instead the short instrumental track, The Carboniferous Rainforest Collapse, which acts more as a coda to its predecessor than as an independent piece. The album concludes with Permian : The Great Dying, a stark, dark piece that veers from Loic’s threatening, even punkish vocal delivery, to Opeth-esque prog, complete with layered vocal harmonies and jarring tempo shifts. It brings the album to an immensely satisfying close and promises great things of the sequel.
It has been five, long years since Pelegial, but the time has not been spent idly. Despite a number of line-up shifts (most notably the loss of Luc Hess and Jonathan Nido in the wake of Pelagial), Robin Stapps has developed an album that is, arguably, the band’s finest outing to date. With the diversity of Precambrian and judicious editing, no element of Palaeozoic outstays its welcome, whilst the Renkse collaboration is absolutely astounding in its depth and beauty. With a strong central conceit, typically beautiful artwork and remarkable attention to detail in the production, Palaeozoic is another masterpiece from a band whose music is as evolutionary as their concepts. 10
