Year: 2020
Total Time: 01:41:58
Label: Metal Blade
THE OCEAN (also known as THE OCEAN Collective) is back with a new full-length work, a follow-up to the 2018’s release of “Phanerozoic I: Paleozoic”. The new album “Phanerozoic II: Mesozoic | Cenozoic” starts where the previous one stopped – at least geologically and chronologically – with the new album continuing to explore nature and the earth itself, from the depths of time, as it is categorized into geological periods that have closed with mass extinctions and biodiversity eruptions over the last 541 million years of the Phanerozoic Period.
Coming out of “Phanerozoic I: Paleozoic” and the Paleozoic era, THE OCEAN began their reference to the Mesozoic era with “Triassic”. A great atmospheric start to the album that flows even better listening to both albums back to back. This piece is strong, heavy and addictive. Followed by the first single “Jurassic / Cretaceous”, which refers to the culmination of a period when tectonic plates shifted sharply and plant life and dinosaurs flourished, till the asteroid struck the Yucatán on Earth wiping everything out by dropping the period at the end of it. The riffs, the percussions and the participation of Jonas Renkse of KATATONIA, makes this piece as epic as its lyrical content.
Musically, apart from the vocals that are different in this new release, there is something strange, compared to the first chapter of the story that the band started in its previous work, a theme that runs through “Phanerozoic II: Mesozoic | Cenozoic”. An issue that has a mood almost out of the Middle East. The guitar parts in “Triassic” and “Holocene” represent this vibe accurately. The excellent quality of “Phanerozoic II: Mesozoic | Cenozoic” and a heavier development in their sound, plus also songs like the above and “Eocene”, make the album magnificent.
Heavy and technical melodies, prognostic and ominous lyrics and the usual intensity that a band like THE OCEAN tends to offer, make “Phanerozoic II: Mesozoic | Cenozoic” exactly what their fans want and expect. This long-awaited album is excellent and will not disappoint either new or old fans of the band.
Rating: 7.5/10
Editor: Fanouris Exintavelonis
Related Link: THE OCEAN – Bandcamp Page
