Here Where Nothing Grows (Important)

As you delve ever deeper into the ocean, as you near the chasms and underwater volcanoes and light-despising creatures that lurk at the very bottom of the lowest depths, this underwater world reveals itself as something markedly different than what occurs nearer the surface. The virtual absence of sunlight and the extremes of pressure produce flora and fauna that, through the process of natural selection, come to thrive in an area of the planet uninhabitable by all other beings. When this band chose to take the name “Ocean,” it is surely these lowest of all depths which the band had in mind. This Ocean (not to be confused with The Ocean from Europe, which released Fluxion in 2004) is all about extremes of (sound) pressure and the absence of light. Ocean’s three-song, 65-minute debut is a stunning slow-motion epic that bridges the gap between Isis and Electric Wizard. It is to Ocean’s credit that it manages to concoct a unique synthesis rather than simply move from one style to the next and back again. From Isis, Ocean takes an appreciation for elongated passages of hypnotic slowness, each agonizing step across this vast soundscape painstakingly detailed in texture and density. This is the band’s cerebral side. It engages the mind, indulges the intellect, prompts mental voyages to uncharted territories. From Electric Wizard, Ocean takes an appreciation for speaker-shaking feedback, the eternal return of the infinite dirge. This is the band’s brute physicality. It hurts the body, attacks the ears, engenders the fetal position. Taken together, Ocean possesses a robust palette upon which to draw. It all amounts to a hypnotic wall of noise, but it is in the intricacies of the construction, in the variations between long, slow, meditative excursions and unforgiving tidal waves of feedback-flanked sludgemurk that the dynamic takes shape. Indeed, it rises to its height during the 13th minute of the second track, “Salt,” where the feedback barely cloaks a swirling, droning, Isis-like spectral melody, the music rising to a near-climax before the brakes seize up and the song descends into a despondent ultra-slow section which is striking in its minimalism. Gradually, the guitar layers are accepted back into the milieu, that gorgeous deadly drone is restored, and the song continues to build and collapse, each cycle renewed with a progression that builds upon the previous edifice. Finally, the song trails off into a stark squeal of feedback drone unaccompanied by the grizzly growls, the drums, or the massive layer of rhythm guitars. It’s just a plaintive tone that drones for a precious few moments. Even though such a sound would normally offend the ear, within the context of Ocean’s music, its beauty is in its simplicity of tone and the intentional underwhelmingness of it, after such a strenuous physiological trip. Simultaneously mesmerizing and punishing, this immersion in the lowest depths discloses an uncommon and provocative musical experience. <T. Bengtson> -9-