Saturday Morning Soundtrack: "Abyssopelagic II: Sounds of Anxiety" by The Ocean (2013)

Well, we're back after a two-week vacation, and what a better way to kick start things than with a guest blog by resident metal expert Dan Joyce. Dan's mission is to show folks that metal is an expansive, vibrant genre with a great deal of variety and range, and lots to love. This week's track comes from a concept album that proves that point nicely. So enjoy!

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Saturday Morning Soundtrack @ Youtube

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"Abyssopelagic II: Signals of Anxiety" by The Ocean (2013)

Concept albums are tricky things. It’s one thing to develop a theme over the course of an album, but to hang everything on a specific storyline is both ambitious and risky (some might say reckless). When done well, a concept album can represent the pinnacle of a band’s success like Sgt. Pepper’s, The Who Sell Out, Ziggy Stardust, Dark Side of the Moon, or American Idiot. That said, a concept album can also consume a band and, even worse, define it for all time. Does anyone remember Styx's Kilroy Was Here and its elaborate plot about robots? And didn’t Green Day try to rewrite Romeo and Juliet?

In the metal world, the risks are still there, but bands seem to be able to pull them off with some regular measure of success. Sure, not every attempt will be worth a listen, but several great albums spring to mind—albums that are successful both in their concept and in the quality and cohesiveness of their music: Opeth’s Still Life, Mastodon’s Crack The Skye, Ahab’s Call of the Wretched Sea (yes, a band called Ahab wrote an album about Moby Dick, and yes, it is utterly brilliant, but that’s for another post). Then there’s the band Amorphis who have used the Epic Finnish poem, Kalevala, as the basis for a number of their albums.

German progressive metal band The Ocean are also known for concept albums and in 2013 they released the beautiful, ambitious Pelegial. Here, the band explores the depths of the ocean in sound and emotion. Each track is named for a layer of the ocean and as the record progresses, the sounds and textures of the songs become increasingly heavy and aggressive, as though the weight of water were truly pressing in on your mind. As if that wasn’t enough, the second disc replays all the tracks, stripped of vocals, so you may be washed the in unadulterated waves. The Abyssal Zone (also known as the Pelagic Zone) is the deepest layer of the ocean—the very bottom, which remains in perpetual darkness and plays home to only a few rare species of fish. Even so, on “Abyssopelagic II” I get a sense of floating in expansive blue, feeling the tide’s gentle sway. As the swells gather, you can’t helped but be swept away into the gritty-yet-catchy songwriting, bobbing up through the waves of the endless sea, catching moments of ecstasy as the sun breaks through the clouds, just before the depths reach up to pull you back down again.

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In April, we pick back up with our countdown (count up?) and the year 1970. In the mean time, feel free to share your thoughts using the comments below. And, if you would like to write a Guest Entry for the "Saturday Morning Soundtrack" series where you creatively respond to one of your favorite rock songs, don't hesitate to contact me with queries.