ALBUM REVIEW: Holocene – The Ocean

Spanning three albums to date already, THE OCEAN have crafted a post-metal odyssey inspired by the epochs of our planet right from its fiery beginnings. With the fourth and final instalment in the series Holocene, they’ve created not just a conclusion to an immense body of work amongst an already stellar discography, but driven their sound in a bold new direction that still feels resolutely like THE OCEAN. Where preceding double album Phanerozoic sprawled across epochs, Holocene is tightly focused on the modern, human era as its name implies. 

Where previous albums had lush string and orchestral instrumentation, Holocene strips these out to focus solely on brass to go with their heady combination of sludgy, progressive post-metal and the results are arresting. Holocene – the closing track from Phanerozoic II, not the album – certainly hinted at this direction; by embracing more electronic elements and headier synth textures, it was a bold closing statement that gave a hint of the future. That future is borne out in Preboreal that follows on almost exactly from Holocene (the song)’s closing moments as synths pulse, illuminating a futuristic soundscape as the song builds to its riveting climax. 

Even so, things feel a little muted despite cascading drumming and layers of textured guitars and synth. Boreal builds further still, another escalation in tension, but still not quite hitting the glorious, all-out assault of tectonic riffs and screams THE OCEAN can bring to bear so masterfully. Holocene marks a departure from previous efforts in that way; rather than episodic, self-contained songs, this time there’s far more build until the eruption of Atlantic with its pummeling drums and heaving riffs. The pay-off is just as mammoth as the song’s namesake, making the previous near 20-minute build more than worth it. 

The next curveball is thrown very swiftly as Unconformities offers a grand departure with guest vocals from Swedish singer Karin Park. Her haunting, ethereal voice drifts across the song, a seeming vision of serenity; but then THE OCEAN do what they do best and release perhaps one of the heaviest, most unhinged breakdowns of their career. Much like their name, it’s a song that ebbs and flows, waves washing up and down until you’re dragged under by the tides in a flurry of violence. It makes for a much more turbulent second half than first, one that pushes and pulls relentlessly, offering rarer and rarer moments of calm in the storm.

Lyrically focusing on aspects of humanity from obsession with self, consumerism, always presenting the “ideal”, youngest version of ourselves, it’s also a damning critical assessment of modernity that asks crucial questions of our relationship with technology, the world and each other; themes the band have returned to many times over the years, warning “don’t act as if you were unaware what lies ahead” with thunderous closer Subatlantic. The dichotomy between crescendo and lull is nothing new to THE OCEAN, and even while Holocene arguably sits overall on the quieter side, it’s no less enthralling, never heavy for the sake of it and still as forward-thinking as ever. 

Rating: 8/10

Holocene is out now via Pelagic Records.

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