ALBUM REVIEW: Pale Existence – Ocean Of Grief

The Greeks have a long, rich history of culture and theatre. Widely considered to be the birthplace of drama over 2,500 years ago, they have imbued their stories and songs with emotion and performance since before many other countries were even discovered. Fast forward to today and Athens’ OCEAN OF GRIEF are carrying on that legacy with deeply emotive and affecting melodic death-doom, steeped in melancholy and malice. Here on their second album Pale Existence, they show the world exactly why Greece remains the Kings and Queens of the drama world.

Five years on from debut album Nightfall’s Lament, it would appear that OCEAN OF GRIEF have been honing their craft. Poetry For The Dead is simply epic, from the instrumental passage that lulls you into a false sense of security, through a graceful ascension, to the bellowing conclusion that is so ripe with fury that you feel it in your atoms. The sextet here display a superb understanding of building tension and layering many elements into one cohesive, emotionally-driven piece. Dale Of Haunted Shades meanwhile works in reverse, starting from the catastrophically heavy and stripping right back to delicate beauty. It’s a fantastic double header to start the album and takes you on a fully realised journey from nothing to everything and back to dust again.

Perhaps the best weapon in OCEAN OF GRIEF’s arsenal is the ability to make every part sound equally important. A result of sublime production and the arrangements that give every instrument a vocal quality, it’s a stunning and captivating draw for the band. Cryptic Constellations shows this in best effect here on Pale Existence – the shortest track on the album, it gives level footing to the vocals, the drums, the guitars, the bass and the keyboard. When Charalabos Oikonomopoulos’ earthquake growls are not shaking your blood, you can rely on the guitar riffs to come in like an ethereal chorus, or the thunderous drums to cut through like sharp barks. It’s a quality that makes every second feel crucial.

And yet, in nailing their sound and their aesthetic, Pale Existence soon falls into the pit of feeling repetitive. While the vocals are impressive, there’s a limited range exhibited across these seven songs. When guitars float in like a ghostly waif on Unspoken Actions, you’ll notice that they do so toward the end of Imprisoned Between Worlds, too. Every trick that OCEAN OF GRIEF conceal up the sleeves of their vantablack robes is cast out again and again, and while those techniques and layers are impressively effective, it does feel like you’ve heard the whole album by the end of track two.

At the end of the day, there are worse problems to have. Pale Existence is the sound of a band that absolutely knows who they are. Fans of melodic death-doom need to be tuned into OCEAN OF GRIEF if not already, because what they do, they do very well. We just get the feeling they can do so much more.

Rating: 7/10

Pale Existence is set for release on March 3rd via Personal Records.

Like OCEAN OF GRIEF on Facebook.