Oceans of Slumber: Taking A Stance For Solidarity

In 2018, not long after the release of third album The Banished Heart, Texas prog-metallers OCEANS OF SLUMBER found themselves splitting in half, with three members walking away from the band. Some outfits wouldn’t recover, but for drummer and founding member Dobber Beverly calling it quits was never on the table for a moment.

“It was people walking away from something; it wasn’t us putting something down,” he explains from the comfort if his own home. “The best way to put it is that their contributions, though vast, were not the things made the band what it is. Yes we were a collective that were doing things, but the centralized idea was coming from one place, and obviously that place still exists because we put out the new record.”

And that new record, the self-titled Oceans of Slumber, is without question the best of the band’s career, a complex and layered monolith that takes you on a rollercoaster where you can’t see the track beneath you or ahead. Given how much is going on, one might think that it took a long time in coming together and if so, one would be very wrong.

“We wrote the record in the course of about four to six weeks,” reveals Dobber. “This shit just flows out, it’s not like I sit on a song and develop it forever, you know? Return of the Earth Below, for example, simple enough until it gets to this big bombastic thing at the end, was written fully within, two or three hours, same with Pray for Fire. The old band members were heavily into detailed working on each track, whereas for me the magic comes in the spontaneity of ability. We’re professional enough that we can write fast and commit things without having to adhere to a safety net.”

Dobber is also adamant that the band’s career is certainly aided by a fiercely loyal fanbase that is open to any form of progression in their style or sound, which is even more useful given that OCEANS OF SLUMBER are never going to pander to anyone with their output. “This music isn’t being written to cater to any idea or anybody at all; it’s an artistic statement, which I’m sure will be to our detriment eventually. Our label rep says the same shit – ‘You guys won’t be able to make radio play’ or ‘You won’t be able to hit these certain audiences because this stuff is too complicated or dense.’ I think it’s misjudging and condemning the audience too much to think that it’s over their head.”

Oceans of Slumber once again sees the band go above and beyond, from the soaring sounds of The Adorned Fathomless Creation to the truly guttural middle of Total Failure Apparatus, a nod to Dobber’s side involvement with US grindcore band INSECT WARFARE. However, as the album was being prepared, the #BlackLivesMatter movement took over the world and the aforementioned Pray For Fire took on an entirely new dimension, particularly as Cammie is African-American. It wasn’t a total curveball within the camp, though.

“We were simultaneously writing about personal and social issues as well as historical issues,” explains Dobber. “Pray For Fire was inspired by Paul Weiss, a famous philosophy professor from Yale who spoke on the loneliness of the human condition, that life is hard enough as it is but even more so when you’re trying to make a statement or make your life liveable. And the idea of the song was that we will not give up or be beaten, it’s this call to arms to rise up together. Although not written from a racial or civil strife standpoint it was written from a personal one and became quite prophetic, but it’s intended to bond us together and be a call to justice.”

For the world looking in, the United States can seem quite treacherous at present, but Dobber is keen to reassure that he and Cammie live in a very mixed, metropolitan and accepting area, with the unrest happening in more isolated pockets across the country. But he does have some words for those who are involved and supporting the movement. “If you’re an ally to the cause you’re an ally, you know, and don’t feel bad at the way that you approach the things that you want to do as an ally to the cause. Don’t make it all about yourself or anyone else specifically, all you’re trying to do is eradicate and change social outlooks so just continue to call people out on their bullshit.”

Without any intentions at all, OCEANS OF SLUMBER find themselves in a very potent position for both musical boundaries and social barriers. Given the way they are confronting both, it won’t belong before they’re smashing down doors in every way imaginable.

Oceans of Slumber is out now via Century Media Records.

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