The Ocean – Fluxion
November 2004
Progressive Sludge Metal / Post Metal
Make My Day Records
Berlin, Germany
2004 would mark The Ocean Collective’s return with a revamped lineup and a much more ambitious sophomore effort than their thirty minute instrumental debut, Fogdiver. Fluxion clocks in nearly an hour across nine tracks of sonically mysterious, complex and textured riffology. This record would also mark the introduction of vocals into the soundscape. While the core lineup of Robin Staps, Jonathan Heine, Torge Liessmann, and Gerd Kornmann would remain the same, the band brought both Meta, and Nico Webers onboard for vocal duties. However, years later in 2009 the band would re-release this album with new vocal tracks featuring their then-vocalist Mike Pilat. The 2009 edition of the album is the one we’ll be looking at today.
While Fogdiver was a purely instrumental pursuit, it felt much more intentional with regards to the guitars providing the bulk of the melody and acting as the driving sonic force across the record. While that remains partially true on Fluxion, the addition of vocals has clearly shifting the duties of the different instruments around to some degree. The writing here feels more like The Ocean is focused on crafting a multi-layered, esoteric soundscape with all sorts of different textures and movements, versus the more melodic, experimental guitar work found on their debut. As another example of this, while the first album included segments of horn and symphony work, that element of the band’s music is increased greatly on this second release, with almost every track beefed up by compelling orchestral work that makes uplifts the entire piece into a new echelon of “epic” from the previous record.
While I’ve made much ado about the shift away from pure instrumental music on this record, vocalist Mike Pilat actually doesn’t really take up much of the spotlight on this album when all is said and done. Instead he feels much more like window dressing on a wider work that is already quite brimming with emotion and interest and such sonic diversity. When he does crop op, he provides some fantastic, deep, semi-guttural growling that feels somewhere in between the yelled bellowing of early Mastodon or Baroness and the metalcore-leaning screams of a groove metal act like Lamb of God. It’s interesting that Pilat doesn’t really show up much throughout the album’s runtime as it’s clear that The Ocean are still putting most of the focus on the instrumental side of things.
Robin Staps and Jonathan Heine on the guitars and bass are still doing a fantastic job of conjuring some seriously crushing and monolithic riffage that doesn’t really fit within any particularly specific genre. The Ocean are very clearly a progressive metal band and much of their song structures and choices when it comes to rhythm and experimentation reflects that, but there’s also a very present element of sludge metal here, especially in terms of both the tone of the guitars and the pure thickness that the riffs take on here, especially on a track like “Comfort Zones”. In some ways this album defies both genres and moves into a zone beyond the pure metal sphere. Indeed The Ocean have been described as post metal before, and I think that description is apt as there are certainly elements of bands like Isis present on this record, as I’ve mentioned in my review of Fogdiver.
Drummers Torge Liessmann and Gerd Kornmann are once again on fire here as much of this record is driven forth by the sheer weight and sludgy thickening ooze of the drums. The percussion here makes me feel like I’m wading hip-deep through a mixture of sediment and clay on a muddy beach. You can almost feel the squelching between your toes as you struggle with every step. A lot of emphasis is placed on extended and intricate tom rolls as well as passages of thudding double bass that never feels like standard issue metal double bass drumming. There’s something more to it that I just can’t place. Perhaps it’s simply in the production.
Speaking of the production, this album is leaps and bounds ahead of Fogdiver in terms of the clarity and heaviness on display. Every instrument is given a degree of care and attention to detail that separates this record from the band’s first. It’s not to say that I think Fogdiver is badly produced. If you’ve read my review of that album then you’ll know I actually appreciate just how raw and analog it sounds in comparison to something like this. I think for a lot of progressive metal fans the production style present on Fluxion is more in line with what they’d expect, but for me I prefer the rawness. I like knowing that the drummer in the band I’m listening to is a real person, and I still think that comes across in the production on this album.
Fluxion is a fantastic followup to Fogdiver, improving on the formula in just about every way. The band is clearly settling more into the style they’d later become well regarded and respected for in later years, though it still isn’t quite at the level they’d ultimately perfect on a record like Heliocentric or Anthropocentric. Still, I find this album to be an immensely enjoyable listen and have had a blast coming back to it and spinning it again in the past little while. If you’re a fan of progressive metal you certainly owe it to yourself to check out the back catalog of a group like The Ocean. They’ve got so much to offer you as a listener, and Fluxion and Fogdiver are just the tip of the iceberg.
Favourite Tracks:
“The Human Stain”
“Comfort Zones”
“Equinox”
“Dead on the Whole”
~ Akhenaten
Where Strides The Behemoth? 