The Ocean - Aeolian

*=Staff's pick	The City In The Sea Dead Serious & Highly Professional Austerity Killing The Flies Une Saison En Enfer Necrobabes.com One With The Ocean Swoon Queen Of The Food Chain Inertia*

Genre	Prog./Extreme Metal	Meta/Nico Webers	Vocals
Tracks	10	Robin Staps	Guitar
Runningtime	53 Min.	-	Guitar
Label	Metal Blade	Jonathan Heine	Bass
Release	28 Nov. 2005	Torge L./Gerd K.	Drums
Country	Germany	Nico Webers	Keyboards
Similar artists	Sepultura, Napalm Death, Neurosis

It is hard to describe the sound of a band like The Ocean. Progressive German nu-metal? Hard core orchestral black metal? One thing is sure. These guys are serious about their music. While their last release Fluxion included a whole orchestra, Aeolian presents a metal opera with a row of different guest singers/screamers. The level of ambition is quite high. The band lives for its music. During recording sessions the members even live collectively in the basement of an old aluminium factory that also includes their own studio. Unfortunately it sounds like shit anyway. Well, maybe not if you are into both hard core and progressive metal. But let's say that the sound is very craving of its listener.

I often dismiss bands as not enough original in their sound. This time the case is almost the opposite. The Ocean is just too much. You cannot take in all aspects of the music at once. That can be a good thing sometimes, when you discover new details for every time you listen. But then the whole works together in some way. There are some glimpses of hope, as when a beautiful cello takes over for a minute just to be abrupt overshadowed by a horrible growling voice, in Inertia. But mostly these passages appear more like the musicians play against, rather than with, each other. I am now happy to put The Ocean into the archive.