The Ocean
PreCambrian

"After resting, on the eighth day, God created the Truzzo!

Maybe it was a Monday, maybe he didn't feel like getting back to work,

maybe the raw materials for the mixture weren't the freshest, the fact is he immediately realized

that this new creation hadn't turned out really well because the truzzo

as soon as he opened his eyes and saw himself in the middle of the Garden of Eden, exclaimed:

"And where the hell are we? On the Island of the Famous?"

You will find this and much more in this latest and fourth work of 2007 by The Ocean, a German band of metal extraction, dedicated to experimentation and kneading (allow me the term) many genres. This time they start from a far away place and cook up a concept album about the genesis of the world (sic!), titled Precambrian, practically the era when Iron Maiden were born. Very suggestive (let's say obvious then...) is the choice to name the track titles after geological eras, and the two CDs in EONS, (yes, two CDs for 1 hour and 20 minutes, if you get there, of primordial music). An EON is an incredibly vast stretch of time, capable of encompassing several eras, that are already something to reckon with. Just saying... maybe you won't give a damn about The Ocean or the music they play, but now you can proudly claim that you know what an EON is! The first CD, which really lasts a short time, is a mini CD; a paradox considering it encompasses even 2 EONS "Hadean and Archean" in 5 tracks/eras, but we are careful not to ask ourselves why this (temporal) paradox, let it suffice to know that it is the most turbulent EON CD, and it couldn't be otherwise, since The Ocean aim to sound-wise transmit to us what a massive thing must have been the birth of the nascent Earth.

To give you an idea, they are greatly inspired by the typical sounds of CONVERGE, but if I must say it, I would have expected something even more extreme: DYING FETUS and NAPALM DEATH would have better conveyed the concept of primordial chaos, but we have to blindly trust The Ocean who have chosen a less cacophonic style, surely they have firsthand insights of the remote era that we do not possess. With the second EON CD titled Proterozoic, the sounds parallel the process of the Earth's stabilization, no longer shaken from the foundations by intestinal gases and gastroesophageal refluxes, but that finally begins to experience moments of calm even if only apparent. Would ISIS and AGALLOCH be just right? And indeed, this time The Ocean get it right and emulate greatly (who said copy?).

In conclusion, a fascinating album, which despite some limitations, primarily the lack of originality, can certainly be judged as a very good work, meticulously crafted technically and that winks at those aforementioned groups. If you fear that listening to the entire work from start to finish... will take an EON and 20 eras of your life, console yourself that you will gain them in geological culture.

"And so, to make up for the half-botch that came out, God went back

to work for a new creature that would compensate for the truzzo's lack, superficiality, and

insensitivity. This time he chose the best ingredients and mixed them with care,

including some metal, a lot of metal... maybe too much metal... and so was born...

but needless to say..."

STAY EONIC BUT ALSO STAY POWER