Composer Reacts to The Ocean - Pelagial (REACTION & ANALYSIS & ALBUM REVIEW)

I'm really glad this was the album by The Ocean that was picked, it's my favorite by them and also my introduction to the band. I first discovered The Ocean because they were on tour supporting The Dillinger Escape Plan the year this album came out, and even back then this album felt ahead of its time. I saw them again a couple weeks back opening for Leprous, which I think was their first time back in the US in almost 10 years? They put on a great set as always and this time I actually knew the songs. Maybe you could check this out on your own time, but they performed their latest album in full for the fest Roadburn (which was completely livestreamed due to COVID) and it was an incredible performance. When the new album came out I wasn't too into it because while they started as a post-metal band, The Ocean have been getting proggier and proggier over the years and ditching the post-metal stuff, but that performance got me super excited to see them again and I was able to appreciate the new album more.

I love this band. One of the best modern prog metal bands. Loic, the singer, broke both his legs a few days ago in an accident, and performed in a wheelchair for a few shows. He will undergo surgery. For more info check their social media.

"Let's dive into it" I see what you did, Bryan, even if you didn't yourself. :P

The Ocean changed my view on music and you have further enhanced my understanding on WHY I love them so much. Your musical knowledge is wildly impressive. The fact that you can listen to a 9 minute song and remember SO many little details in each section blows me away and listening to your analyses helps me recognize all the things that The Ocean does well. I know it isn't your style of music but I love that you appreciate the love and attention to detail that they pour into their music. The fact that you nailed the Stalker theme shows how knowledgeable and perceptive you are. I kept thinking to myself, "There's no way he actually even comes close to what this album is about, right?" Then you mentioned the movie "Annihilation" and I knew you'd figure it out. Wild. You're awesome, dude. If you do any more of these guys soon, I'd love to hear you check out Heaven TV or She Was the Universe.

So as far as the water sounds and theme go, this album has been described by the band as being a journey into the depths of the ocean. The further you get in the album the deeper you go. The music gets continually heavier and darker.

I got such a kick out of watching somebody else figure out how great this band and album are.

Your whole analysis about the Freudian elements and the references and inspiration from the movie Stalker are actually right on and 100% correct and were stated by the composer, lyricist, and guitarist, Robin Staps in interviews about the album. Also fun fact about the water samples, most, if not all, of them are taken from old submarine movies, which were specifically utilized because the movies helped convey the same elements of claustrophobia that The Ocean wanted to play with in the album to reference the heightening water pressure as you get deeper into the conceptual ocean. Basically to sum up, The Ocean is a fucking awesome band and just does the coolest things ever on their albums.

LETS GOOOOOOOOOOOOO Favorite The Ocean album right here, such a cool concept and such a phenomenal work. So glad to see it up here!

I'm a third into the video, but I just wanted to mention that, as other comments have hinted at, they are a band that definitely work around their theme, both the songwriting and musicianship are in service of their concepts rather than the other way around. That's why they trascend the Post-Metal genre even if a lot of their music fits that label. The music here gets heavier, darker and also dronier as we "go down", both to represent increasing pressure, darkness but also a less diverse/abundant presence of living creatures. The earlier tracks are definitely busier because the top layers of the ocean are filled with life, things get quieter the more you go down. It even fits the psychological parallel theme. The more in depth you go, the more you reach core concepts/ideas/feelings/impulses, and less about the cluttered "superficial" level of anyone's mind.

Holy hell, the entire album?! Thanks man! One of my favourite albums from one of my favourite bands. Also, gotta respect the analysis! Too often reaction channels just give their surface level reaction, and don’t try to understand the music. Good work man!!

If I remember right this was originally written as a single piece of instrumental music due to the vocalist having some sort of health issue. But then things changed and vocals were added on at somepoint

Holy sh*t, the entire album? Incredible. I remember buying this album blindly just because of the cover. Best decision I made that day. If I remember correctly, this album was intended to be one huge purely instrumental track and they only just added the lyrics after the rest was already recorded und broke it up into separate songs.

I'm really late to the party but as always pleasure to listen to you talk about music (instead of standard youtube reaction reaction aka " amazed face while the song plays thanks for watching guys". I could have sworn I was subbed to you but I wasn't, fixed now. Btw, you were spot on. The moment you mentioned the movie Stalker I literally screamed out loud haha. So the story of the concept behind this album is it was originally going to be an instrumental album since their vocalist (Loic) had issues with his throat, they composed majority of it and (i think) even recorded demos, then it turned out Loic is back to being healthy, so they had to come up with some lyrics complimenting the music. They chose, surprise surprise, the movie Stalker. Initially they took lines straight from the movie itself and used them exclusively as the lyrics. At the same time they messaged the company having rights to the movie to get allowance, yet no response was sent their way. So they were forced to more or less write new lyrics, but they did what they could to have them revolve around similiar themes and matters, which (quite clearly, as your personal analysys proves) was a success in the end. Again, I'm really late to the party but big thanks for this video! Much love my man

Just watched the entire thing. Amazing reaction, you pretty much nailed it!

So glad you did this reaction, these guys deserve more recognition. I'm also glad you checked the tracklist names as I could see you working out but not quite getting to the point of realisation you had when you looked it up. Also they've always done concept albums heliocentric and anthropocentric are cool double concept albums and as you know already they've done one on time periods starting with precambrian and then phanerozoic part 1 and 2. Their albums fluxion and aeolian are also double concept albums but ive not looked into what they are about aeolian is a good album but I'm still to hear fluxion.

You're on a streak with these album reviews / analysis! BtBM, Agalloch and now The Ocean. Keep going!

YES! My wish has been granted. And sooner than expected.

As a guitarist and aspiring musician this album is inspiring. Peak performances. Perfect album for summer time

The treat of the album is that the further you get into it, metaphorically speaking, the deeper you are getting into the ocean, which is what the songs titles represent - the different levels of the ocean. Also the deeper you go, the darker, heavier and doomier it gets. Also fun fact: this was entirely supposed to be an instrumental album and then got switched to only having vocals on the last track and then he (lead guitars/songwriter) decided it was best to have a full on vocal album. This is a huge album for me. It was there in my darkest times, I learned it entirely on guitar and still play it to this day and it is the album that got me into prog music. Which then got me to bands like between the buried and me, animals as leaders, native construct etc. Thank you so much for this reaction. This band and album needs so much more spotlight on them, it's insane.

Pelagial is a fantastic album, glad to see you tackle it!