THE OCEAN: A Post-Modern Experiment (2023)

By BRIAN GIFFIN

THE Ocean’s Phanerozoic I and II weren’t supposed to be part of a trilogy. The German band’s twin album musical exploration of the development of life on Earth from the Cambrian explosion up to the current era was intended to end with the final notes of “Holocene”. 

That was until keyboard player Peter Voigtmann began sending snippets of song ideas to guitarist and main composer Robin Staps during the pandemic.

“In the beginning we didn’t know if it was going to be for an Ocean record or what we were going to do with it,” Staps explains, “and by the end of it, it was becoming clear that it was Ocean material. It connected well with the end of Phanerozoic II so it was logical to make it an appendix to that, although it was originally planned to let that record (II) close the cycle – so it’s a little bit like an unwanted child!”

Unwanted might not be the best way to describe Holocene – unexpected would perhaps be better, especially with regard to the musical direction The Ocean has taken. The band’s ninth album marks a shift into more electronic areas than previously. Staps puts this down to a combination of the initial ideas coming from Voigtmann instead of himself, and a desire for the band to further explore the electronic angle. 

“It probably became that way because of the way the album was written,” Staps begins, “which for the first time wasn’t with me sitting down with my guitar and programming drum beats, but coming from Peter’s end, our synth guy. Obviously the synths play a stronger role because he was the one writing those core ideas. So it felt like a logical step, because at the end of Phanerozoic II we were already going in that direction with songs like ‘Holocene’, the track, the closing track on Phanerozoic II.”

There were other tracks on the previous album, he goes on to say, where the synths took on a more prominent role too: “Tracks like ‘Oligocene’ were already going in that direction.” 

The Ocean’s base in the heartland of the current European electronic music scene was also an influence.

“It also reflects the development within the band and what we listen to these days. Not that much metal, actually,” Staps admits with a grin. “We listen to a lot of electronic music. And we’re from Berlin, so that probably plays a role in that. Berlin is probably the world capital for electronic music these days. It’s everywhere and there’s a lot of really good, cutting edge shit happening. We love that.”

Prior to joining the band as a musician in 2018, Voigtmann was The Ocean’s lighting tech. Coming into a guitar-heavy band, “it took him quite some time to find his place,” Staps surmises. Up until that point, synths and keys had mainly been used to double the guitar hooks and add further depth to their tone on the recordings.

“There wasn’t so many outstanding individual ideas of his own,” Staps says of Voigtmann’s contributions to the Phanerozoic sets. “That has changed a lot of the course of the past four years. He’s just become a lot more confident and he’s doing other things, and this album is an expression of that. It’s Peter’s space, primarily, and I took those ideas and added the usual Ocean ideas on top – the guitars and drums and bass, and horns, in this case.”

Musically Holocene is overall a quieter and softer journey from The Ocean with a very different range of dynamic tension, although Staps will argue against any idea that it isn’t also a heavy record.

“I have to disagree [that it isn’t heavy],” he says. “I think it’s a very heavy record, but it’s heaviness achieved with different means. Some of the heavy parts on this record are among the heaviest parts we have on any record, like the end of ‘Unconformities’ and parts of ‘Subatlantic’, for example. It’s not as many as other records, and altogether it’s more of a dynamic journey. But I do believe that by building it up to the more metal parts, the metal parts feel heavier when they come in.”

The Ocean used the pandemic as inspiration for the album’s lyrical themes. Each track expounds on an individual subject that was suggested by the events of the time, which Staps believes makes it less conceptual than previous outings.

“The lyrics were written during that very weird time that we were going through, when nobody was really sure what was happening, and why. That brought all this weird social segregation, and even within my own friends people were having their own theories, often mingled with weird conspiracy theories and people were having discussions and were really divided into camps and it was a fucking weird time. We used (the title) Holocene as (it was) kind of synonymous with the modern age, or a postmodern age, maybe. Every track on the record has its own topic, so to speak, so in that way I think it’s the least conceptual record we’ve done because every song has its own agenda.”

Given their past as a guitar-dominated act, Staps is pleased by the reaction Holocene has received so far, even from more established fans for whom the move to electronics might feel like a kind of betrayal. Considering some of the backlash they received for stylistic detours in the past, the guitarist says he’s shocked at the reception.

“It’s been surprising. I wasn’t sure,” he admits. “We’ve had (backlash) in the past. When we released Heliocentric in 2010, which was the first one with predominantly clean vocals, and people were saying that it wasn’t metal, so many people were turning away from us. I was expecting something similar here, but it really hasn’t happened at all. Everybody loves the record. It’s really shocking. Even our older fans who are into the really heavy stuff like this record. I read a couple of comments from people who were quite skeptical but always commented on the (social media) pages, but they seem to love it. It just seems to be something they can all relate to.”

Robin Staps still isn’t clear about whether the current experiment with synths is one The Ocean will continue. He’s already completed songs for another album he was working on at the same time as Holocene that is in a more familiar guitar-driven vein. He maintains that Holocene was an experiment, but doesn’t rule out doing similar things again.

“It’s just a different approach,” he says, “and whether that’s the general direction or just a detour… it’s probably something in between. I can tell you that there’s already a second record that I wrote at the same time. While I was working on Holocene with Peter I was also writing my own tracks, and that record is in the pre-production stage. The songs are all written but we have haven’t recorded it yet, and that one is more riff-based and probably links better with Phanerozoic I. So I think that next one will be a bit more grounded in guitars again. (Holocene) wasn’t a natural direction. It was an experiment, and we’ll see what becomes of it. We all enjoy it but how much of it we will walk in the future, the future will tell us.”