Rebuilt from the ground up, a reinvigorated The Ocean sets its sights for the cosmos across the progressive post-metal voyage of Solaris.
Release Date: September 25, 2026 | Pelagic Records | Bandcamp | Instagram
Early into “Departure Song”, Enrico Tiberi intones ‘the one thing I’ve understood about time is that it never stops.’ And you know, it’s hard to not ponder that line repeatedly while considering the circumstances that preceded The Ocean [Collective] releasing Solaris. With time, change is inevitable, and by their foundation The Ocean was always a project that was subject to change. Founded as more of a, well, collective by Robin Staps, the German group did start to fully develop into a consistent band back around the release of Heliocentric in 2010, which led to a phenomenal run of albums from there to 2023’s Holocene.
Personally, that lineup has been responsible for some of my favorite metal ever created, particularly with the sublime Pelagial. They’ve also made for some of the best live music I’ve ever seen, even winning the firm approval of my long-suffering, less metal-inclined wife. The announcement that The Ocean‘s previous incarnation was going to dissolve had me not necessarily worried, but definitely a little bit sad. Sure, it was nigh guaranteed Robin Staps would still churn out great music as he did before the entire Loïc Rossetti era (Precambrian remains my runner up favorite from the band), but would it still carry that same feeling and emotional resonance?
From the warm vibraphone notes, acoustic guitars and soft vocals that comprise “52°30’11″N, 13°26’12″E” (fittingly, the coordinates of Pelagic Records‘ office!), I’ll admit I did feel a wave of distinct comfort when first encountering Solaris. Despite a near-completely new configuration of musicians, Solaris is still very much The Ocean as we remember them. The songs are still written in broad, proggy post-metal swathes that eschew typical structure for cinematic grandeur, while still delivering a healthy dose of moving vocal hooks and punchy, heavy riffs.
And I’ll re-emphasize that point; Solaris has some of the most addictive vocal patterns I can recall from The Ocean. It’d be no exaggeration to say the melodies of “Departure Song” have been ringing in my head for days, while “Light Pollution” felt like a all too strong a choice for a lead single, highlighting the strengths of both the new vocalists. To wit, there are stretches across Solaris where I almost forgot that Enrico Tiberi has supplanted Rossetti, their tones being very similar both in cleans and hardcore shouts (though maybe Tiberi is just the slightest tinge more “conventional”). More fresh and unique for the band is the addition of Lane Oshi. While she tends to be the less present vocalist across Solaris, she’s an absolute show-stealing asset between her genuinely beautiful melodic singing, more blackened shrieks, and the avant-garde explorations she’ll regularly deploy. Plus, the way Tiberi and Oshi harmonize across Solaris is positively marvelous.
The Ocean as a whole likewise comes across as feeling solidly ambitious across Solaris. “Simulacra” is an absolute monolith on a scale the band has seldom reached for before, spanning nearly eighteen minutes and featuring sounds as diverse as gentle piano and braying trombones, all while balancing the album’s cosmic aspirations with the band’s tidal (heh) heaviness. It’s only fitting that “Belligerence” features some of the hardest music on the album, while several ebbs into beautiful atmospherics only go to underscore the band’s knack for aggression.
Meanwhile, the ending cycle of “Ultima Esperanza”, “Milk Of My Dream”, and “51o28’30″S, 73o6’11″W” (the geographic location of Chile’s Ultima Esperanza Sound), tied together by a repeating synth motif, feels like a climactic encapsulation of the band’s strengths. The former shows all the broad strokes majesty of the Phanerozoic albums, while the latter two flow together with shared lyrics and a heavy lean into the synthetic vibes that carried Holocene, weaponizing the synths and vocals into a hypnotic, almost tribal mantra, aided in the former case by a guest spot from Thorsten Quaeschning from Tangerine Dream. It’s just such an easy stretch of music to dematerialize into.
Every piece that I love about The Ocean is in place across, and every musician feels like a perfect and natural fit into the collective’s sonic palette. Perfectly produced, a minimalist but striking album cover; everything about Solaris feels reassuring, like there was an effort to remind fans that the massive lineup shift doesn’t mean fans have lost their band while also forging ahead with experimentation. All this being said; I don’t think Solaris is my favorite thing The Ocean have done as of yet. The cosmic theming is great (I’m guessing the album name is their second nod to Tarkovsky’s works, after the heavy Stalker inspiration on Pelagial), and the peaks are just majestic, but across the seventy minutes of album it does admittedly feel safer and less experimental than the band has been in the past, which could make for some drag when the band leans in a more post- direction. It’s comfortably The Ocean, without a lot of left field swings. But at the same time, I guess that’s kind of what I wanted?
Solaris might not exactly be The Ocean shooting for the stars, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that I very deeply enjoyed the album and am thoroughly excited to see how this lineup progresses. It doesn’t quite hit the same levels that Pelagial and Precambrian did for me, but those are some insanely lofty highs. Solaris is proof that the new hands supporting the band are adept and trustworthy, and I’ll be eager to see where the band goes next on their voyages. To quote “Belligerence”, ‘I have come to terms with this new reality’. One of my favorite metal bands is still going strong despite a borderline Ship of Theseus transformation, and I’ll gladly keep punching my ticket for further voyages if Solaris is any indication of albums to come.
