Search - Ocean :: Heliocentric

Mixed feelings

dugan fife | 04/21/2010

(3 out of 5 stars)

"This is a review I didn't want to write, and this is an album that I've tried very hard, through several listens, to ignore its shortcomings. As an album, this disc probably deserves three and a half or even four stars. But as an album by one of my favorite bands, The Ocean, I'm rather disappointed.



On one hand, the new direction taken by the prinicple member of the Ocean Collective (guitarist Jonathan Nido) seems like a natural enough evolution of the music, with more piano and strings throughout. And while there are still brutal passages peppered throughout the album, the real downfall of this "new collective" is the vocalist, newcomer Loic Rossetti. At times he comes across more as a contestant on American Idol than the frontman for one of the darkest, heaviest, most epic metal bands I've ever heard and loved.



Track 2 actually starts the album, as the first track is merely an ambient intro. This opener, "Firmament," gets us off to a flying start and is definitely a high point of the disc. Tool-esque rhythms, tension/release techniques, and even some brutality this early on would appear to set us on a path through the latest vision by an extrordinary group. Track 3 is also promising and even enjoyable, but still not quite what I've come to expect from The Ocean.



However, the path becomes quickly overgrown with too-perfect, radio-friendly vocal melodies and simplistic arrangements, which become almost unbearable on "Ptolemy Was Wrong," "Catharsis of a Heretic," and "Epiphany."



There are still high points throughout, and the melodic vocals, while still too pop-perfect, even work well sometimes, as on "Metaphysics of the Hangman" and "Swallowed by the Earth." Still, the death metal vocals are spot-on, and the music is really fantastic for the most part. Not to be ignored, the sound quality here is PERFECT.



While I was disappointed with this follow-up to 3 brilliant works--"Fluxion," "Aeolian," and "Precambrian"--hope springs eternal! "Heliocentric" is the first release of two this year by The Ocean. "Anthropocentric" is the title of "part 2" of their latest work, and will be released in the fall. It's supposed to be the more technical and heavy of the pair, so The Ocean still have a chance to redeem themselves.



I'll be looking forward to giving five stars to "Anthropocentric" in a few months. Until then, I'll keep on spinning the three albums that gave me such high hopes for this latest offering."

A new Ocean

Marcus Giegerich | New Jersey | 07/01/2010

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I was initially underwhelmed by their latest effort Heliocentric, but that disc has proven to be a grower and I'm quite impressed with it. Many long-time Ocean fans may bemoan the new vocalist, but is he really any worse than anybody else they had in the past? I don' think so. And while his clean singing sounds a bit like Avenged Sevenfold's M. Shadows, he shows that he is capable of going from a light croon to a full-bodied roar.



The album itself has an excellent opener in Firmament (I don't really count the short intro track). The next couple of songs slowly sink the album into a lull and here's where a first time listener would begin to despair. But things really begin to pick up with Metaphysics Of The Hangman and Swallowed by The Earth. Epiphany is a quiet little ditty that features piano and string work that sounds like it could have been taken off of an early Tori Amos album. The lyrics of the song are incredibly introspective. And then we have the final two songs (The Origin Of Species, The Origin Of God) that share a common riff. This ending duology is worth the price of admission alone as once again the lyrics run very deep while the music builds to a massive climax. You will be hard pressed to find a more intense piece of music than the first 2 minutes of The Origin of God. What makes it even more stunning is that once the clean vocals kick in, there is hardly any guitar left in the mix at all. The accompaniment is almost all horns, yet it remains very heavy. How do they do that?



This album does not quite reach the heights of Fluxion or Precambrian, but is still a must-have if you are a fan of The Ocean. And for those of you just discovering this wonderful band, this would make a fine starting point as it is pretty accessible by Ocean standards. I'm really looking forward to the release of their next disc that compliments this one later in the year.



A strong 4 stars."