Genre: Sludge Metal, Post-Metal
Name: The Ocean
Album: Heliocentric & Anthropocentric, 2010
Look what's evolved from the primordial Sludge...
UPDATE: now includes instrumental versions
I remember the day rather clearly. I was striding through the now-closed record store, tall, educated, aloof, and weighed down by my younger brother was far more interested in Beiber and Akon than Slayer or Ahab. He was tired, bored, and irritated, so I had to choose my CDs more hurriedly than usual. In a fit of annoyance, he handed me one and said "Get this one. The cover spins." That was all I needed - both I, and, shortly enough, the CD were sold. That CD was Heliocentric, and it was my first encounter with The Ocean Collective, and I have never looked back.
Heliocentric is the first of 2 albums designed to "critique" Christianity, and is focused primarily on the history of the Catholic church and its sins, cataloguing the deaths of "heretics", amongst other things; however, they clearly didn't think people would realise this, and had to put in a disclaimer:
"FIRMAMENT contains words adapted from the King James Bible, Genesis 1:6-20. THE FIRST COMMANDMENT OF THE LUMINARIES contains words adapted from I Enoch 72:2-5. No, this does not mean that we are believers, trying to convert you to join the Church of the Hangman..."Musically, it is quite diverse, ranging from the coarse and heavy tracks such as "Metaphysics of the Hangman" to elegant, jazzy piano pieces like "Epiphany", combined with a full string quartet, saxaphones, trumpets and trombones and even a vibraphone. Vocally, too, it is excellent, with screams offset by elegant and quiet singing, with well-written, albeit misleading lyrics.
Anthropocentric was, therefore, always going to have a tough act to follow. Focused more on theological problems, it emerged a far heavier, and less diverse album, with the brass instruments removed, and the strings now reduced to the three musketeers, rather than the four seasons. However, although it was an album based almost entirely on raging aural infernos, when it finally decided to allow us a breath of air, "Wille Zum Untergang" was a reflection of perfection: a slow build, steadily increasing as the guitars danced elegantly around each other, and the snare work became slowly more complex - it was magnificent, the epitome of post-metal, the perfect yin to the yang of "She Was The Universe" and other crushing tracks.
The vocals tended more towards screaming in this album, but had a great lyrical range, drawing from sources such as Lord Byron, Friedrich Nietzche (how could they not, given the subject matter?) and Fyodor Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov. However, if you will excuse a brief theological aside, they hardly stand up to close scrutiny. Take, for example, the song "Heaven TV", which claims that heaven will be an empty white sphere, and then uses that idea to attack Christianity. There is no basis for that at all: indeed, the bible describes heaven as not a sphere but a city, and a square one at that. Elsewhere, Staps relies on tricks of the tongue to score cheap points. Whilst none of this detracts from the music, it does leave a somewhat bitter aftertaste, knowing that the lyrics are flawed.
However, one does not buy CDs to be educated on the meaning of life - except, perhaps, for self-help audiobooks. Musically, these CDs are amazing, far greater than I had expected or even dreamed when I picked the first one up that day. The perfect balance of heavy sludge and light, introspective guitar, this is what post-metal should be, and I recommend it most highly.
Summary: Excellent, anti-Catholic post-metal, with great range.
Lyrical Themes: Theology, history of the Catholic church
Rating: 9/10 - Recommended
Track listing:
Heliocentric
1. Shamayim
2. Firmament
3. The First Commandment Of The Luminaries
4. Ptolemy Was Wrong
5. Metaphysics Of The Hangman
6. Catharsis Of A Heretic
7. Swallowed By The Earth
8. Epiphany
9. The Origin Of Species
10. The Origin Of God
Anthropocentric
1. Antropocentric
2. The Grand Inquisitor I: Karamazov Baseness
3. She Was The Universe
4. For He That Wavereth...
5. The Grand Inquisitor II: Roots & Locusts
6. The Grand Inquisitor III: A Tiny Grain Of Faith
7. Sewers Of The Soul
8. Wille Zum Untergang
9. Heaven TV
10. The Almightiness Contradiction
Download Heliocentric
Download Anthropocentric
Download Heliocentral
Download Anthropocentral
Great post! ♥
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