Album Review #1.

THE OCEAN - ANTHROPOCENTRIC

The Ocean have always been regarded as one of the most chameleonic and exploratory bands in the generally underground world of post metal. A band with a rotating door policy even after they dropped the “collective” from their name, the only constant has been the founder and songwriter, Robin Staps. But since 2007’s Precambrian, Staps seems to have set his sights on a more stable line up after Mike Pilat departed at the end of the Precambrian tour.

In April 2010, Heliocentric was released featuring the new line up and most notably, the new vocalist Loïc Rossetti. His arrival seemed to mark a stylistic and dynamic shift, for the first time they sounded like a band rather than a lumbering collective of session musicians and guest vocalists. It also marked the first album with a notable number of tracks sung with clean vocals rather than the typical metal growl. Counterpoint to the sonic change, Staps continued his love for the concept album, with Heliocentric being a heavy philosophical and intellectually plausible debate on Christianity, taking concepts from Nietzsche, Copernicus, Rimbaud and Darwin.

Heliocentric was a critical success and the most important Ocean album to date. It would have been in the running for album of the year, if it wasn’t for November’s release of its companion album Anthropocentric.

Considering how much of a watershed Heliocentric was it was difficult to see how the Ocean would follow it up. But Anthropocentric is a revelation. It continues with the same musical shift that began on its predecessor. However, immediately, you sense something has changed, it may be difficult to perceive on first listen with the title track coming out of the gates like a hungry caged animal and Rossetti shredding his larynx with relish. Luc Hess’s drums are as pummelling and precise as any speed metal drummer albeit with added flourishes. Robin Staps and Jonathan Nido succeed in building a wall of guitars with immediacy and texture. About midway through the track, a startling gear change with clean guitars allows Rossetti to showcase his astonishing singing voice. This also allows Staps’ brilliant song writing to shine, which is the key to Anthropocentric’s genius. The beautifully harmonic and utterly catchy chorus means it’s easy to forget this is an extreme metal band at all, it just shows how far the band have come in recent years. It’s worth mentioning that the Ocean all live in different European cities and write by sending each other songs and ideas online.

Overall the album seems somewhat heavier than Heliocentric, following the Ocean tradition of one melodic progressive album and one traditional hardcore album, but in this instance it’s not that simple. Although this is missing the orchestration and piano ballads, it’s the loud quiet take on the vocals that really take you another place altogether, it’s an album that’s crushingly heavy in places and achingly melodic in others.

Lyrically, Staps continues his critique on Christianity, this time focusing on fundamentalism and creationists who believe the earth to be only 5,000 years old and at the centre of the universe. Dostoyevsky’s The Brother Kamerezov provides inspiration for three tracks which are the back bone of the album “"The Grand Inquisitor I, II and III”.

The album closes with one of the most beautiful songs this year. The closing refrain of the “"The Almightiness Contradiction" with the repeated lines “there’s no one here who knows it all, is there’s something there beyond the world we know?” is one of the most spine tingling vocal breakdown’s heard in recent times. A fitting climax to a masterful collection of songs.

It may seem clichéd for a metal band to be singing about such highbrow concepts and may seem to some as only a few steps removed from their death metal cousins’ songs about worshipping Satan; but it’s a far more important piece of art, and an utterly brilliant collection of songs that are at once moving and powerful. The Ocean have turned in the two best albums of 2010 and a supremely intelligent comment on organised religion. This is the sound of a superbly talented band with a songwriter on the top of his game.