Let me preface this post by saying that it is about the Portland, Maine based doom-metal band called OCEAN – not the Berlin, Germany based progressive/post-metal band THE OCEAN.
OCEAN have finally announced a November 1st release for Pantheon of the Lesser, their long-awaited followup to their the epic 2005 debut album Here Where Nothing Grows. Although OCEAN has been able to secure tours with some of the the biggest names in their realm of music during the last 3 years, they have remained surprisingly under the radar. However, they stand to make a big mark on the ever-growing doom-metal map later this year when they release their newest full length album. Pantheon of the Lesser has been over two years in the the making, and it promises to be the perfect album to listen to it as you look while climate change cracks, melts, and collapses the rest of the Mother Earth's glaciers in the North.
In their approach to metal, OCEAN is a band that strays away from every of form of convention. Even with respect to what may be typical in the mood and atmosphere focused doom metal genre, OCEAN is a band that plays music with an extremely expansive, dynamic, and beautiful point-of-view. In fact, despite their ability to to drive the music forward with deep growls and booming drums, it's safe to say that the epicness of their musical marches place them as close as anyone in the metal community to defunct post-rock gods GODSPEED YOU! BLACK EMPEROR – and that's something to be respected. OCEAN's bleak and brutally heavy landscapes are simulataneously experimental and focused. I highly recommend that anyone who worships anything from CONVERGE to TODAY IS THE DAY to NACHTMYSTIUM to SUNN O))) to NEUROSIS listen to "First Reign" and "Salt" from their last release, Here Where Nothing Grows. Whet your appetite with these for now, but stay tuned for when OCEAN releases their next doom metal vision Pantheon of the Lesser.
August 29 at The Church in Boston, Massachusetts
November 1 at Space Gallery in Portland, Maine (record release show)
