Ocean Collective

They engineered one of the biggest sounds of their time on the double album that was released as two separate albums, Fluxion (Make my Day, 2004), containing the progressive orchestral-tinged pieces, and Aeolian (Metal Blade, 2006), devoted to brutal sound, both recorded in 2004. Keyboards and strings interfere with the bombast of bone-crushing riffs and huge drumming in the instrumental Nazca Growling vocals and over-arranged density propel the eight-minute The Human Stain followed by a pause filled with strings before the main refrain returns in grand pomp. It sounds a little formulaic and not well fused. The combustible fury of Comfort Zones offers a smoother bridge between hardcore and prog-rock but lasts only three minutes. In another example of successful marriage of brains and muscles, bucolic chamber music creates the suspense in Fluxion that the distorted riffs then shatter. Even better is Equinox which dispenses with the classical arrangements and instead boasts a gallopping rhythm and a stately refrain. The band shifts to almost-clean vocals in the ten-minute Isla del Sol, presumably intended as a counterpart to the previous Isla de la Luna, a sort of agonizing chant in a lugubrious martial atmosphere (the album's standout). The 14-minute The Greatest Bane, propelled by tribal pounding riffs, surprises with a choir of clean vocals that intones a melody similar to the Eurythmics' Sweet Dreams but then struggles to find its footing in chaotic sections with trivial melodies, in a neoclassical break of flutes and strings and in the too brief triumphal return with dejavu riffs. Fluxion was re-released in 2009 with the vocal tracks re-recorded by Mike Pilat.

Aeolian, featuring seven vocalists (including Nico Webers and "Meta"), is a more streamlined affair. Unfortunately, it also sounds more monotonous. There are moments of intensity and creativity but they tend to be spread out over the songs, with no song achieving greatness as a whole. For example, the feral metalcore vocals of the mid-part and the stately growl that follows it in The City in the Sea; the last two anthemic minutes of the nine-minute Austerity (which is otherwise a compendium of trite riffs and vocals); the dissonant hiccup in the second part of Une Saison en Enfer; the vocal counterpoint halfway into Swoon and the closing celestial choir; the almost abstract mid-section of Inertia. The most elaborate composition is Queen of the Food-Chain, which also transitions into a "symphonic" break (more typical of Fluxion) and closes with another somber choir. The are flashes of brilliance but hampered by mechanical chugging and poor death-metal vocals.

The schizophrenia worsened on the double-disc Precambrian (Metal Blade, 2007), one (short) disc being permeated by dissonant metalcore fury while the other disc indulged in ambient/progressive detours. The first disc is little more than a prolonged imitation of Mastodon with metalcore detours (Palaeoarchaean sounds like Converge with the addition of an obnoxious growling man). Neoarchaean - To Burn the Duck of Doubt is the only piece that rises over the average, again thanks to the metalcore infection. The second disc (subtitled "Proterozoic ") is the intellectual counterpart, influenced by Cult of Luna and Isis. The eleven-minute Rhyacian is extremely diluted by an opening subdued elegy, funky nuances, a folkish violin-and-piano lullaby, etc. Statherian opens with a bucolic motif that only halfway gets accelerated to become a cacophonous nightmare. The eight-minute Calymmian is less intellectual: just a tidal wave of sludge interspersed with ominous gothic instrumental breaks. The nine-minute Ectasian is instead a tense melodrama. The eight-minute Stenian opens with a country-jazz instrumental jam and boasts the most melodic refrain, sung in both clean vocals and in growls. On the downside, the piano work is a little substandard in Tonian and not well amalgamated with the bursts of violence, and the closing sonata for piano and violin, Cryogenian, is not exactly Beethoven. All in all, an emotional rollercoaster. The vocalists on this album were Mike Pilat, Nico Webers and "Meta".

In 2008 the band (now a quintet with Staps, Pilat, guitarist Jona Nido, bassist Louis Jucker and drummer Luc Hess, replacing Torge Liessmann) changed its name to The Ocean.

With new vocalist Loic Rossetti (mostly on clean vocals) they made a major stylistic U-turn on the concept albums Heliocentric (Metal Blade, 2010) and Anthropocentric (Metal Blade, 2010). The former is their softer album since Fluxion, anchored to classic prog-rock of the 1970s. Despite a little bit of furor dropped here and there, Firmament declares their new passion for melody. This trend is amplified in the pastoral folk ballad The First Commandment Of The Luminaries, which is generally better architected and arranged without any "sludge" pretense, but then it gets out of control in the piano ballads Ptolemy Was Wrong and Epiphany. Metaphysics Of The Hangman sounds like Muse without the punch. The only moment of post-metal pathos comes in The Origin Of Species, including the neoclassical break, a contender for standout with The First Commandment Of The Luminaries but on the opposite side of the stylistic spectrum. Rossetti fits in this band's tradition of vocalists who are mediocre and derivative in the growling register and even worse in the (whining) clean register.

Anthropocentric partially returned to their Mastodon- and Converge- inspired post-metal without abandoning the melodic effort. Sewers Of The Soul is the winner in the heavy section, followed by Heaven TV, while The Grand Inquisitor II - Roots & Locusts achieves the best balanced hybrid of violence and melody. She Was The Universe too is relentless despite the pretentious melodic refrain. However, the nine-minute Anthropocentric seems to show that they would be a better band if they played folk-rock because the first (heavy) part is a condensate of metal cliches. The gentle and dreamy instrumental Wille Zum Untergang signals they could be an interesting post-rock outfit. The Almightiness Contradiction The brief and surreal intermezzo The Grand Inquisitor III - A Tiny Grain Of Faith surprises with clean female vocals (Sheila Aguinaldo). Some songs sound like experiments, but others sound like leftovers.

Pelagial (Pelagic, 2013), marketed as a "multi-dimensional concept" (a journey through the depth zones of the ocean), was released as both an all-instrumental album and a sung album (mostly clean vocals). Each one has pros and cons. Without the vocals some pieces feel like aimless doodling. With the vocals some songs feel like second-class pop ballads. a prog-rock fantasia like Mesopelagic: Into The Uncanny feels like a hysterical version of Yes. The magic of the album rests in the nuances and details, like the celestial piano and the operatic melody of Bathyalpelagic I: Impasses, the bombastic refrain of Bathyalpelagic II: The Wish In Dreams, which is appropriately followed by the ferocious and war-like Bathyalpelagic III: Disequilibrated. Abyssopelagic I: Boundless Vasts then feels redundant, because it is a mix of Mesopelagic and Bathyalpelagic, but the power-ballad Abyssopelagic II: Signals Of Anxiety (a melodic peak) creates one of the most gripping atmosphere thanks to pacing and arrangements. Hadopelagic I: Omen Of The Deep is largely disposable and the arrangements are mostly buried in the first half of Hadopelagic II: Let Them Believe (one of the key soongs) and can only breathe in the second half. They return to the "symphonic" style of Precambrian in Demersal: Cognitive Dissonance (even a little bit of growling), a dense and grandiloquent epitaph to an emotional tour de force (the closer is not up to the task). While neither original nor groundbreaking, the album constitutes a cohesive work and has largely any redundant part.

The line-up changed again, with guitarist Jonathan Nido replaced by Damian Murdoch and drummer Luc Hess replaced by Paul Seidel.

The split EP Transcendental (2016) contains Ocean's The Quiet Observer (12:43).

Staps was ready for new geological/paleontological odysseys. The concept album Phanerozoic I (Metal Blade, 2018) is another set of dense and dynamic compositions that explore a broad range of tempos, riffs and melodies. Each song has peaks of high energy and bottoms of low energy. As usual, vocals and riffs are hardly groundbreaking. They variations on Pearl Jam, Dream Theater and even Bruce Springsteen, masquerading as a new brand of post-metal. The real achievement of the Ocean is how cohesive and organic these lengthy and elaborate songs are. The eight-minute Cambrian II/ Eternal Recurrence pivots around panzer-grade rhythm and solemn vocals reaching an apex of terrifying force five minutes into the song. The band turns romantic in the nine-minute Silurian/ Age Of Sea Scorpions: melodic opening, Indian-esque overdubbed vocals, violin and piano soundscape, dreamy choir, soaring semi-growled hymn, and, at the end, symphonic apotheosis. Even more melodic is the eleven-minute Devonian/ Nascent (with guest vocals by Katatonia's Jonas Renkse), which is basically a sustained power-ballad in several movements. The nine-minute Permian/ The Great Dying is an appropriate closer that summarizes pros and cons: vocal gymnastics, intricate drumming, catchy refrains, smooth ebbing and flowing, and moderate metal riffs.

Phanerozoic II (Metal Blade, 2020) is two albums in one. The "Mesozoic" section contains the eight-minute Triassic, which opens like an adagio of latter-day Pink Floyd before the routine explosion of Indian-esque riffs and vocals, and the 13-minute Jurassic/ Cretaceous, which features with stately big-band horns in the first half, a Bach-ian keyboard pattern in the mid-section and a death-metal tremolo and blastbeats in the ending. The "Cenozoic" section consists of shorter songs including the power-ballad Miocene/ Pliocene, but the hurricanes at the beginning of Palaeocene and at the end of Holocene could have been used in better compositions.

A new lineup with second guitarist David Ramis Ahfeldt, Mattias Haegerstrand and keyboardist Peter Voigtmann recorded Holocene (Pelagic, 2023), their most relaxed album yet, only occasionally related to heavy metal. The nine-minute Atlantic is mostly a lake of somnolent laments. The nine-minute Unconformities begins with a poignant invocation by female vocalist Karin Park and boasts a grand finale with horns mixed to torrential drumming. Voigtmann's haunting synths are often the dominant sound in this lightweight version of the Ocean. The rest is mostly filler.