THE OCEAN — Anthropocentric (review)

THE OCEAN — Anthropocentric album cover Album · 2010 · Atmospheric Sludge Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
5/5 ·
Stooge
Anthropocentric was the second album released by The Ocean in 2010 (the first being Heliocentric). Having only listened to Heliocentric and Fluxion previously, my first instinct was that this album was pretty much par for the course for the band. But then I learned something: Never judge an album on a single listen, especially when the first listen is through cheap computer speakers.

With the second listen, I went with my favorite setup. Lying in bed, eyes closed, listening to my MP3 player. No distractions. Just me and the music. This allowed me to pick up on many of the nuances I missed on the first listen. It didn’t even sound like the same album!!

Anyways, why do I like it?

The Ocean is one of those groups (like Opeth, for an obvious example) that have the potential to draw fans to a more extreme form of music through their progressiveness and skill blended with accessibility. There are several moments on Anthropocentric where the band throws in aggressive, hardcore passages, and pairs them with melancholic but memorable sections that manage to stick in your head. While several bands make practice of this, The Ocean do it in such a way that it does not sound forced at all. You take a song like “She Was The Universe”, with a verse built around a simple but rather heavy groove. As the song builds toward the calming chorus, the sections are weaved together skillfully with the introduction of slick, melodic guitar work to form a seamless transition.

Several other tracks on the album are able to give such variety within a single track, pairing the beautiful with the brutal. There are others that isolate these moments and are more straightforward, going from one extreme (“For He That Wavereth...,” “A Tiny Grain Of Faith”) to the next (“Sewers of the Soul”). The album flows so well from beginning to end that I find myself appreciating it more as a total package than in pieces.

Anthropocentric was the first album by The Ocean that was a collaborative writing effort between all band members. This is definitely a practice they should continue in the future. This album comes highly recommended!!
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