The Ocean

The ensemble the Ocean, rooted in Berlin, operates as a collective devoted to extreme music. Progressive and atmospheric doom metal fuse with electronica to create their hybrid approach, while ferocious execution defines output that consistently merges organic instrumentation, electronic elements, and sampled passages. Their paleontological concept series opened with 2007's Precambrian. Two thematically connected albums followed in 2010, Heliocentric and Anthropocentric, which examined the sun and humanity's ties to it. Progressive 2013 release Pelagial broadened the focus to encompass the ocean itself, establishing the works as a self-contained trilogy. Phanerozoic I: Palaeozoic appeared in 2018 as a direct sequel to Precambrian, with Phanerozoic II: Mesozoic/Cenozoic arriving in 2020. The paleontology cycle reached its close with 2023's Holocene.

Staps gathered guitarist Andreas Hillebrand, bassist Jonathan Heine, drummer Torge Liessmann, percussionist Gerd Kornmann, and an array of specialized vocalists including Nico Webers, Sean Ingram, Nate Newton, Thomas Hallbom, and Carsten Albrecht in 2000. Partial inspiration from the progressive explorations of Neurosis guided the group as they sought to produce brutal heavy metal laced with lighter atmospheric passages inside strictly orchestrated structures, yielding the 2002 demos Islands/Tides and Queen of the Food-Chain. Make My Day released the five-track EP Fogdiver in 2003, followed by Fluxion in 2004. By then, dozens of musicians had already passed through the ranks.

Aeolian, recorded during the same sessions as its predecessor, marked the Ocean's 2006 debut on Metal Blade. Both albums earned descriptions as "doom soundtracks." The hard-hitting, prog-tinged double album Precambrian arrived in 2007 and inaugurated the band's contemporary phase, uniting sludge and progressive elements with grandiose, occasionally orchestral atmospheres wrapped in extreme, visceral heaviness. Vocalist Loïc Rossetti, who employs singing rather than growls, replaced Albrecht for the 2010 releases Heliocentric and Anthropocentric, issued five months apart, and helped redirect the group toward a more spacious style featuring broader textural and dynamic contrasts. Pelagial emerged in April 2013 as the band's most ambitious project to date, composed for performance as a continuous 53-minute conceptual piece whose sections interact throughout. The package included both vocal and instrumental versions.

Following Pelagial and its five-year tour, the Ocean experienced further lineup shifts. Paul Seidel replaced drummer Luc Hess, Australian guitarist Damian Murdoch succeeded Jonathan Nido, and the roster expanded with cello player Dalai Theofilopoulou, pianist Vincent Membrez, and Peter Voigtmann on synths. First output from this expanded configuration was the split album Transcendental with Japan's Mono, issued to preview a joint European tour and to mark Mono's signing to Pelagic. Each band contributed one extended track, with the Ocean's "The Quiet Observer" drawing from Gaspar Noé's film Enter the Void. The split appeared at the end of October. After the Pelagial tour concluded, Staps withdrew as usual to a secluded cabin near the ocean and composed the next album.

The Ocean entered the studio in February 2018 to record the two-part Phanerozoic. Centered on the eon following the Precambrian supereon and covering a 500-million-year span to the present, the project traces the evolution and diversification of plant and animal life alongside its partial destruction across five mass extinction events. Conceptually and musically, the double-length work represented the band's first retrospective, serving as the missing link between Precambrian and Heliocentric/Anthropocentric while functioning as a direct sequel to the former. Jens Bogren handled recording and mixing, and the first single "Devonian" featured Katatonia's Jonas Renkse on lead vocals. Phanerozoic I: Palaeozoic was released in November 2018. Phanerozoic II: Mesozoic | Cenozoic, originally slated for fall 2019, was delayed by one year, continuing the narrative arc established in the Precambrian cycle.

The single "Jurassic | Cretaceous," featuring another vocal appearance by Katatonia's Renkse, appeared in July 2020. Metal Blade issued the full-length in September 2020, alongside instrumental versions on the band's Pelagic label. It entered the German pop charts at number nine and later peaked at five. Unable to tour amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the Ocean promoted the album through two streaming concerts that were filmed, recorded, and released in all formats the following year. With many restrictions lifted, the group resumed live activity in mid-2021 and performed globally for a full year with minimal interruption before returning to the studio. January 2023 single "Preboreal" formally announced Holocene, the fourth and final installment in the Ocean's paleontology series. The single and video for "Parabiosis" followed in February.

Holocene surfaced in May and reflected a revised writing approach. Prior albums typically began with Staps supplying a guitar vamp, vocal melody, or drum beat to spark collective development. For Holocene, each song originated from an idea composed by keyboardist/electronicist Peter Voigtmann, who forwarded files to Staps during lockdown. The guitarist layered additional parts and returned them, establishing a process completed through in-person work at either Voigtmann's rural studio or the band's Berlin facility. They also adopted a different mixing strategy from earlier albums handled by Jens Bogren, sending recorded material to multiple professionals before selecting longtime ally Swedish producer Karl Daniel Lidén.