Description
While their brand new album „Phanerozoic I: Palaeozoic“ is making tsunami-style waves across the globe, we are reissuing THE OCEAN‘s 2010 albums „Heliocentric“ and„Anthropocentric“ on vinyl!
The „centrics“-albums saw the introduction of current vocalist Loïc Rossetti to the band’s lineup, a game changer in their 17 years history. „Anthropocentric“ is heavier than its same-year predecessor „Heliocentric“, with the crushing 15-minutes openening track duality „The Grand Inquisitor“ part I and II and following track „She Was The Universe“, one of the most-streamed THE OCEAN tracks to date, setting the bar high for the rest of the album.
Conceptually, „Heliocentric“ and „Anthropocentric“ are a comprehensive critique of the legacy of christianity: While „Heliocentric“ approaches the topic in a historical-chronological way, the main focus of „Anthropocentric“ is the „Grand Inquisitor“-chapter in Dostoyevsky’s world-famous novel „The Brothers Karamazov“, spread out over 3 tracks of the album. Other songs like the serene „The Almightiness Contradiction“ take up ideas by Richard Dawkins, the spearhead of modern day’s aetheism.
Since 2001, the Berlin-based musician collective THE OCEAN have released 7 critically acclaimed studio albums, and a split EP with Japanese post-rock legends Mono. With an ever-changing lineup of various on- and off-stage musicians and visual artists, the relentlessly touring group have become well known for their immense, mind-expanding live shows, which they have carried into the most remote corners of the globe, from Siberian squats to colonial theatres in Ecuador.
Over the course of their storied career, THE OCEAN have toured with Opeth, Mastodon, Mono,The Dillinger Escape Plan, Anathema, Between The Buried And Me and Devin Townsend, and have appeared on major festivals including Roskilde, Dour, Pukkelpop, Roadburn, Wacken, With Full Force, Summer Slaughter, Summer Breeze and Graspop. The band’s own Pelagic Records has also become one of Europe’s leading labels for post-rock and post-metal, with a catalog of 120 releases since 2009.
“The Ocean do for earth science class what Mastodon did for Melville: make learning brutal”, Decibel wrote about 2007’s Precambrian, Revolver describing it as a “Teutonic paean to Earth’s geology“. 2013’s seminal Pelagial, described as “a filmic ode to shifting moods, dichotomous influences and the musical personification of sinking towards the planet’s deepest underwater points“ by Rock Sound, was a milestone for the band, and their most conceptual work to date, and was ranked #3 at LoudWire’s “Best Metal Albums Of 2013”, and #5 in About.com’s “2013 Best Heavy Metal Albums“.
