Ocean - Pantheon of the Lesser (2008)

Ocean
Pantheon of the Lesser (2008)

Ocean's 2005 debut album, Here Where Nothing Grows, was a fantastic display of heavy, bleak, depressing, suffocating, atmospheric doom metal. For 2008's Pantheon of the Lesser, the band have changed their game, giving us two new extended tracks of heavy, bleak, suffocating, depressing, atmospheric doom metal...WITH A FEMALE VOCAL ELEMENT! Whatever. It's not like doom is known for its sea changes (zing!). They have their niche and they're sticking to it.

Even though the band haven't changed by leaps and bounds, the three year gap between the two albums have been largely good to Ocean (not to be confused with Germany's THE Ocean; that band does sludgy prog-metal, this is doom. DUH!). Any band with the skills to make a thirty-five minute track worth repeated listens must be doing something right. "The Beacon" blasts the album open with a heavy drum beat and a stroke of the guitar, and seems to hint at a fast start until that beat is left to linger in the air for several seconds, at once reminding the listener who they are. "Fast start" my ass; Ocean do everything slow.

The song builds, slowly of course, and the growling vocals sound more like the heavy howling winds of a thunderstorm. The song climaxes with the introduction of said female vocal element, at first singing, then screaming as the music begins to envelope her and the listener simultaneously. It's not very unlike the title track on Ancestors' 2008 debut, Neptune With Fire, but the styles are different enough between the two bands to avoid that feeling of déjà vu. After "The Beacon", the main job of the closing track, "Of the Lesser", is to not ruin the momentum; a job that it completes with flying colors, almost to the point of surpassing the excellent opener. At a scant (in comparison) twenty-three minutes, it's leaner on instrumental sections but no less epic in proportion.

For a time, the climax of "Of the Lesser" conveys a feeling of optimism...before punishing the hell out of that nonsense with a series of bass heavy, pummeling drum beats similar to the one that opened the album. "Save the optimism for post-rock bands", they seem to say. "We're all about dooooooom."


Score: 8.5/10


"Of the Lesser" (excerpt)