Reviewed by Ian Phillips.
By The Ocean, Pelogic Records 2023.
The Ocean are a Berlin-based post-metal/progressive metal band that are renowned for their theme inspired albums and the unrelenting heaviness of their music.
You could think of them as the thinking person’s heavy metal band.
Holocene is the final chapter in a three-album musical exploration of palaeontology that began with the critically acclaimed double album Phanerozoic which was released in 2018.
That album ended abruptly with a track called Holocene which provided the starting point for this album.
Holocene is the latest, and thus-far shortest, epoch on the geological time scale in which humanity appeared on earth.
The album explores how we have shaped our planet through our development and use of technology, sometimes for the betterment of our existence, but also just as often to our own detriment.
The topic is vast and so are the sound parameters of the album which comes across as more intimate than much of their previous work.
Intimate it may be but the album and sound is still vast.
There’s less distortion to the guitars with more of the lead work being carried by the synths, and there are horns throughout all the early tracks, even vibraphone.
However, the band have been drawing us in because in the 4th track, Atlantic, they finally unleash the guitars with one of the heaviest riffs they’ve written.
The long build up to this explosion of sound makes it even more dramatic.
Holocene follows the pattern that The Ocean have developed throughout their 10-album career.
They have made a habit of tackling many of the big issues facing humanity and Holocene is no exception: conspiracy theories (Boreal), the quest for eternal youth (Parabiosis), the Instagram society (Preboreal).
The album is an examination of alienation, loss of reason and critical thinking, angst, conspiracy theories and the deconstruction of human values that we’ve all witnessed.
It’s heavy going but musically it’s exciting and doesn’t come across as overblown and egotistical.
The official video for the lead single Parabiosis is on YouTube.
