Century Media Records
Review by Warren Mayocchi
Oceans of Slumber has been with us for a number of years and have now created a self-titled album to help us survive difficult times. Musically the band combines a powerful female vocal, harsh and clean male vocals, with a wide variety of backing, expect to hear acoustic guitars, heaviness in the tune of doom, delicate passages and that is just the first song. Running at just over seventy minutes, the twelve songs are given plenty of space to breathe. Half of the album gives us tracks which are over six minutes, and in the other half the shortest song is three and a quarter minutes long. So, expect the songs to change tempo and mood regularly. It is easy to love this type of album, the musical theatre alone is worth the entry price, but to have such powerfully awesome lead vocals on display against the backdrop of the theatre is as close to perfection as most of us will hear. Two of the tracks are instrumental and are just as awesome as the other ten.
Every song is my favourite, and each time I think I should pick on a track to highlight I hear another which deserves the spotlight. So, let us consider the music videos. “A Return To The Earth Below” gives you a taste for how well put together are these songs. It is a song possibly unlike what you might have expected from what I have written thus far, but that is what you will discover on the album. It is constantly moving and exploring extreme shades of what this group of musicians can pour out of themselves. To hear something quite different watch “The Adorned Fathomless Creation“. Insistent backing music and growled vocal introduce us to an interesting arrangement which slows the pace the deeper it goes, well except for those insistent passages which return throughout the song. Compare just these two songs and attempt to imagine which you will find on the rest of the this album. Continuing to the next music video have a look at “The Colors Of Grace“, a duet of clean female and male vocals which remind me of The Reasoning – not a typical comparison for a gothic/doom/metal group. Now watch “To The Sea (A Tolling Of The Bells)” and listen to the rolling waves of emotion in audible form.
So far I have not mentioned the lyrical content, there is a lyric video for “Pray For Fire” to show off the words behind the music – “Now they pray for rain / But I am the coming storm / They pray for forgiveness / But I pray for fire“. Oceans of Slumber closes out with “Wolf Moon“, a cover of the haunting Type-O-Negative song. All in all this is a perfect album, a modern classic full of interesting and moving music.
Rating – 100/100
Tracklist
- Soundtrack To My Last Day
- Pray For Fire
- A Return To The Earth Below
- Imperfect Divinity
- The Adorned Fathomless Creation
- To The Sea
- The Colors of Grace
- I Mourn These Yellow Leaves
- September (Those Who Come Before)
Line Up:
- Dobber Beverly – Drums, piano
- Cammie Gilbert – Vocals
- Mat V. Aleman – Keyboards
- Semir Özerkan – Bass, vocals
- Jessie Santos – Guitars
- Alexander Lucian – guitars, vocals
OCEANS OF SLUMBER online: