The German post-metal paleontologists, THE OCEAN, stopped by Helsinki on December 4th, 2024, during the Northern leg of their one last run of shows with the current line-up, and hence the ongoing tour was titled The End of An Era. The modus operandi of this tour was to play the band’s latest album, 2023’s “Holocene,” in full, paired with another set of selected cuts from the previous two outings – “Phanerozoic I: Palaeozoic,” (2018) and “Phaneroic II: Mesozoic/Cenozoic” (2020). To say I was thrilled to see the band for the very first time with this sort of special offering would be a glaring understatement. A year and a half ago, when I wrote the review, I was still too blown away by its predecessor to dub “Holocene” the band’s best release to date; with time, it has grown onto me, so that, now, I’m glad to acknowledge the album’s haunting musical stature as the band’s peak performance. Then, as a nice bonus, the up-and-coming metal rogues, BIPOLAR ARCHITECTURE, hailing from Berlin and Istanbul, was booked as the warm-up treat for this tour. Not knowing anything about the band in advance, their pummeling set of prog-flavored post-metal pleasantly surprised me.
I arrived early at the On the Rocks venue to secure a good spot. The last time THE OCEAN played a show at the same venue, a couple of years ago, the show was sold out (the show that I missed exactly because of this). Now, there seemed to be at least some tickets available at the door but, once inside the venue, I soon realized that it would be packed to the full. BIPOLAR ARCHITECTURE started relatively early, around 8 PM, and a good number of metalheads showed up early. Good for us! The band pulled an impressive set of post-metal layered with all sorts of progressive twists and raw aggression nodding toward death metal, even. Then again, the band features members of HERETIC SOUL, a band representing the said genre. We all, me and my proggy-minded entourage at the venue, found the band’s unique blend of post-metal very refreshing. As for the setlist, not being familiar with the band’s material, I cannot say much – except that, judging by the song titles projected on the video screen, “If Words Were Swords” and the title track from the band’s latest release, “Depressionland” made such an impression that I couldn’t but realize I need to check this band out in-depth, later! (Now, I have and – yes! – the band slaps!) I have probably said this quite a few times before but I’ll just say it again – once in a while, the as-yet-unheard-of warm-up acts turn out to be real gems. This bunch certainly proved to be one! While most of BIPOLAR ARCHITECTURE‘s songs follow the tried-and-true post-metal template of “the seething-menace-foreshadowing-thunderous-eruption,” as the band’s Bandcamp profile aptly phrases it, the songcraft is by far more nuanced and versatile than the average post-metal endeavor. Once again, it paid off to show up early.
As for the main dish, the name of the tour resonated with myriad meanings. Not only did the title refer to the impending end of the current line-up of THE OCEAN but I think it also referred to the overarching concept of their last few albums that zoomed into our planet’s geological epochs. With “Holocene,” the band reached the final epoch of Earth’s existence – what will come next? Something stellar, I reckon, judging by the show at On the Rocks.
As advertised, the band played “Holocene” in full, first. With the album being a tad more synthetically trimmed than its predecessors, the live interpretations of the songs resonated with the haunting air of pedigree trip-hop acts, such as MASSIVE ATTACK, here and there, even. In this respect, one of the highlights of the evening was the moody, atmospheric excursion in A Phrygian dominant, “Atlantic.” It is a song where Miles Davis’ “Sketches of Spain” meets with the pre-millennial tension of Bristol, filtered through the abrasive prism of post-metal. The lineup for this tour features a special 2-piece horn section, and, in this song, in particular, the horns added THAT magical touch, elevating the listening experience to a somewhat other-worldly realm. I don’t usually pay so much attention to the light show, but here, you couldn’t escape noticing how the lights reinforced the somewhat Andalucian mood of the song, leaning toward the yellow and orange shades of the spectrum at key points. Now, THIS is the way to do the lights! You do not need massive lasers to impress – just a little imagination and thought. Overall, this show went straight to my list of the Best Live Shows Ever – and, let me tell you, I’ve seen some pretty rad gigs over the years. THE OCEAN sure knew how to pull a highly immersive show – the execution was flawless, the visuals were rather minimal but complementary to the music, and the songs were, of course, absolute bangers.
For this special occasion, THE OCEAN played for over 2 hours. With the warm-up show clocking close to an hour, a 3-hour music event in the middle of a week would normally be quite a stretch but, here, I could barely notice the passing of time. I guess that says something about the band’s magic. The balance between the ambient tracks, mostly representing the latest release, and the in-your-face riffers, from the previous two outings, was just perfect – and, in the case of the latter, the band was lit. Vocalist Loic Rossetti dived into the audience quite a few times and it sure looked magical to see him sitting in a lotus position atop the sea of people, belting his vocal cords out without missing a beat. He also let the audience join in, handing out his microphone, now and then. At some point, I got blocked by a group of some NBA recruits, judging by their height, I mean, so I kind of missed that part when the band switched drummers. At least, that’s what I heard my friends saying. Later, I heard Rossetti thanking someone for joining in on stage, so I guess my friends were right. I didn’t catch the name, though. What I found out, later, was that the name of this tour must have referred to the band’s drummer, Paul Seidel, leaving after the tour. That was an online rumor, though, so I cannot say this or that about whether it’s true or not. Then again, the band is known for being just a loose collective, with members coming and going all the time. In this respect, it is even more impressive that the band’s signature sound has remained pretty identifiable, album after album, with all sorts of new nuances and influences added to it. Needless to say, I’m pretty hyped up already about what the band’s primus motor, guitarist Robin Staps is planning to do next.
So, the second set was a sort of “Phanerozoic Greatest Hits” thing, culminating in the encore of two songs from the latter half of the twin albums. The live renditions of the songs assaulted you with an almost tectonic force. In a way, it was befitting to bring the evening to a close with two songs about cataclysmic events in the history of our planet. The crushing riffs and post-rock plateaus conveyed the feeling of total devastation – or, “a radiant collapse, planetary scale,” as the lyrics in “Jurassic / Cretaceous” mused, bringing the evening to a haunting close. The emotional parallels between the Earth’s temporal tides and the human experience amidst the looming sixth mass extinction have probably never been put into such an eloquent musical form before. What a night! With the band becoming even more experimental and eclectic with each new album, I’m already curious to see where the future will take THE OCEAN – and the next time these guys are coming by this neck of the woods, I’m definitely going to be there!
Written by Jani Lehtinen
The Ocean Setlist 1: Holocene
- Preboreal
- Boreal
- Sea of Reeds
- Atlantic
- Subboreal
- Parabiosis
- Subatlantic
The Ocean Setlist 2: Best of Phanerozoic
- Cambrian II: Eternal Recurrence
- Permian: The Great Dying
- Silurian: Age of Sea Scorpions
- Oligocene
- Miocene / Pliocene
- Pleistocene
Encore:
- Triassic
- Jurassic / Cretaceous
