The Ocean — Solaris (Full Album Stream)
The Ocean rebuilt half the band for this one: two new singers in Enrico Tiberi and Lane Shi, guitarists from Hypno5e, and Tangerine Dream's Thorsten Quaeschning on modular synths. Solaris (25 September, Pelagic) is a near-70-minute journey built on Tarkovsky's 1972 film, bookended by map coordinates that run from Berlin to Patagonia. A gorgeous mix of hard and soft, with rhythms and vocals that keep surprising you. The whole trip streams above.
Most bands put one single on YouTube and guard the rest. The Ocean put the entire album up, and for this record that is the only honest format: Solaris is a near-70-minute journey meant to be taken whole, from the opening track named after Berlin map coordinates to the closer named after a point in Patagonia. To the stars and back, with the way home marked.
The Berlin collective around guitarist and songwriter Robin Staps built the record on Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1972 film Solaris, and rebuilt the band while they were at it. Longtime vocalist Loïc Rossetti is gone, replaced by not one but two voices: Enrico Tiberi and Lane Shi. Guitarists Emmanuel Jessua of Hypno5e and Marco Gennaro came aboard, and Thorsten Quaeschning of Tangerine Dream plays modular synthesizers across the record, which is exactly the German lineage a space-station album deserves. Jens Bogren mixed and mastered, as he did on Pelagial and the Phanerozoic records.
What hooked me is the balance: this is a gorgeous mix of hard and soft, with rhythms and vocal turns that keep wrongfooting you in the best way. It earns its place in the post-metal conversation we keep having here, from Amenra’s ritual weight to Cult of Luna’s long-form patience. Staps asked about his own era, on the single Light Pollution: “Has there really been forward movement, or has the motion been orbital?” The album answers by actually going somewhere.
Block out the seventy minutes. This one does not work as background.
Listen to this: Solaris