Showing their musical depth
Hmmm. It would be easy to look at the cover of The Ocean’s Aeolian and wonder just how much of a Mastodon rip off is this German band? We’ve seen German bands in the past walk on the wrong side of the line of originality and on face value, you could be forgiven for thinking that The Ocean are following that trend as well. Thankfully, the old adage of ‘never judge a book by its cover’ holds very true in this case. This nine piece, who are drummer Torge Ließmann, bassists Jonathan Heine and Gordon Hünies, percussionist Gerd Kornmann, guitarists Robin Staps and Andreas Hillebrand (who provides live guitars), live visualist Nils Lindenhayn, sequencer Nico Webers and vocalist Meta, have expanded by incorporating six additional vocalists (!!) on Aeolian including Sean Ingram (Coalesce), Nate Newton (Converge/Old Man Gloom) and Tomas Hallbom (Breach), Carsten Albrecht and Ercüment Kasalar. Aeolian is the self described “heavier twin” that accompanies 2004’s Fluxion and never have truer words been spoken.
The complex first track, The City In The Sea snakes left and right throughout a myriad of time changes exploring math metal tangents with plenty of off time passages and violent mood swings that become the cornerstones of not only this solid seven minute opener but the remainder of the album as well. In contrast, Dead Serious And Highly Professional is extremely compact and chaotic with no end of screaming vocals (from who knows which of the seven vocalists that it could be) as it leads towards a fast paced finale. Bruising riffs and driving rhythms dominate the multiple personalities that pervade the nine minute epic Austerity, the rhythmic and layered complexity of Killing The Flies and the mostly fast paced Une Saison En Enfer – all of which never become dull and boring.
Whilst it follows suite within the context of the album, Necrobabes.com fails to have any kind of lasting impact during it’s just over two minute tenure unlike it’s frantic paced neighbour, One With The Ocean, which leaves you wondering what the licence plate was of the truck that just ran you down, and is easily the most straight forward track on the album. Swoon and Queen Of The Food Chain both continue the schizophrenic mood swings via radical time changes and unexpected discordant blasts from left field with the occasional sublime injection of soft melodies which highlights these tracks even more amongst this already strong release, whilst the closer, Inertia, feels and sounds a lot like something Burst would do particularly through the song’s vocals and slower, relaxed beginning.
If there was a criticism of The Ocean’s Aeolian, it would be the length. At almost 53 minutes, it’s just on the borderline of being a tad too long, but to its credit, there is plenty of variety within the 10 tracks that keeps the album interesting on the whole. With only the single lull in consistency, quite simply put, The Ocean’s Aeolian is a multifaceted display of complexity and heaviness that simply must be heard!
(Metal Blade Records/Stomp Distribution)
