The Ocean_Heavy Blog Is Heavy

Tag Archive: The Ocean

The Ocean To Flood China In September, The U.S. In Late Fall And Switzerland In December

Aug.23, 2011

Jesus, are we thinking about December already? Blimey.

I wonder; does Heavy Blog have any Chinese readers? I have no idea! Please come forward if there are any; we’d love to hear from you! Either way, you lucky sods are getting a run of ten dates from German/Swiss metal maestros The Ocean this September/October. Any of you who live in the following areas would be well advised to shift your keisters down there in an orderly but hasty fashion:

09/22 Shanghai – Yuyintang
09/23 Wuhan – Vox
09/24 Chengdu – Little Bar
09/25 Chongqing – Nuts
09/29 Guangzhou – 191 Space
09/30 Hong Kong – Hidden Agenda
10/02 Zhuhai – Zhuhai Music Festival 2011
10/04 Zhenjiang – Modern Sky Festival
10/05 Beijing – Modern Sky Festival
10/06 Beijing – Mao (tbc)

But that’s not all! For anyone who missed out on seeing them with Between the Buried and Me in the States earlier this year, the band made the following statement via Facebook:

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Tags: Robin Stapps, The Ocean

MetalSucks Just Made My Day: BTBAM, Animals as Leaders, and Tesseract Rumored To Tour North America Later This Year?

Filed Under: Tours and Rumors of Tours, WILD SPECULATION!

Jul.18, 2011

A few months back, I thought The Ocean opening for Between the Buried and Me was the best show I’d see this year. Metal Injection has just decided to provide evidence to the contrary, with BTBAM planning a headlining tour later this year that one-ups the last; BTBAM, Animals as Leaders, and Tesseract are rumored to roam North America this fall.

I’m expecting this to be true, because MetalSucks are pretty consistent with this rumored stuff and have some pretty good insider information, I’d expect. It’s also believable because whoever is booking BTBAM’s tours for them knows what’s up; in the last few years, they’ve toured with Cynic, Devin Townsend, In Flames, The Faceless, The Ocean, Animals as Leaders, Baroness, Mastodon, and many more big name bands. They always seem to be put on the best of tours, save for Cool Tour, but I feel that they’ve made up for that one tenfold. I digress, but the point is that their tours have been pretty consistent with lineup quality, and this is no different.

This nerd-friendly tour isn’t officially confirmed, but you can bet that we’re all over this. More info if and when it arrives.

- JR

Tags: Animals As Leaders, Baroness, Between The Buried and Me, Cynic, Devin Townsend Project, In Flames, Mastodon, TesseracT, The Faceless, The Ocean

Start Your Day With An Array Of Textures News!

Filed Under: General News, Live, Upcoming releases, Video

Jul.14, 2011

I have to appreciate Textures cutting through the bullshit and giving us all of this at once. None of that “here’s a song title we’re maybe thinking about, here’s another, and maybe this will be our album title or something, here’s some art” nonsense that drags one piece of news out for the course of a whole season. I’m looking at you, Mastodon; but it’s okay, I forgive you.

I’m going to do what I normally avoid and just paste the press release below, as it pretty much says more than I ever could.

TEXTURES have announced the title of their new album — Dualism — which will see its release in Europe, South America, Australia and Asia on the 23th of September and in North America on the 27th of September via Nuclear Blast Records. The album was recorded at Split Second Sound Studio in Amsterdam, The Netherlands and was produced by the band’s guitar player Jochem Jacobs. The first single, “Reaching Home,” will be released on 19th of August through all major download sites.

The artwork of the album was designed by former TEXTURES’ frontman Eric Kalsbeek and the band’s bass player Remko Tielemans. Eric had the following to say: ‘The guys asked me to co-create the artwork together with Remko, for good old times’ sake. Of course I said yes! I might not be in the band anymore, but I’m still involved in some ways. We’re still pretty close, you know. It was a challenge, it had to be ‘different’ but still Textures-like. Hope you like it!’

After the jump, check out the tracklist and a bootleg recording of a new song!

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Tags: Aliases, Periphery, Textures, The Contortionist, The Human Abstract, The Ocean

From The Archive: The Ocean – Precambrian

Filed Under: Albums You Should Hear, Bands That Made Me Heavy, From the Archive

Jul.06, 2011

From The Archive

The discovery of a new band is always exciting. Will it be something you’ve heard countless times? An experience that leaves a bad taste in your mouth? Or is it a treat from which you cannot stop consuming? I wanted to take a trip back in time to reminisce about bands/albums that not only introduced me to heavy music, but kept me coming back for more…

From The Archive: The Ocean – Precambrian

The Ocean - Precambrian

Visualize an ocean, a large body of water, that at times can appear vast and endless with no conception of what may lay beneath the tide. This is what The Ocean Collective, or The Ocean, as they’re more commonly known, conveys through their music and lyrics. They are not only musicians, but also storytellers, sort of a “thinking man’s metal” band, by exploring themes and stories from the pages of history. With the release of their 2007 album, Precambrian, The Ocean took it upon themselves to base the concept around the early part of the formation of Earth, thereby splitting the album into two-parts; Hadean/Archaean (disc one) and Proterozoic (disc two).

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Tags: Precambrian, The Ocean

Europe Sees Your Textures Tour, America, And Raises You One Of Our Own

Filed Under: Tours and Rumors of Tours, Upcoming releases

Jun.30, 2011

Frak the Gods? Frak YOUR gods mate; we’ve got our own awesome tours to think about.

Okay, so we haven’t got quite the mind-bending lineup of that particular tour, but only by virtue of there being more bands. No matter, because this November the almighty Textures will co-headline a run of Dutch, UK and French dates with The Ocean, and will be joined by British tech-metal debutantes Aliases for the run on their home soil. Textures guitarist Bart Hennephof said:

“Yes, finally it’s time to do some shows again! After this long period in the studio we really want to get back on the road! It has been a while since we were in the UK, so get ready for some brutal live shows! With our friends from The Ocean and Aliases each night will be a party! We are back, stronger than ever!”

Exclamation mark! Aliases are of course pumped to get on their second tour, and people should be more familiar with their material this time round, as their debut album Safer Than Reality is due out on August 15th.

A good few months to wait yet, but in the meantime here’s the all-important dates!

17-11-2011 – VERA (GRONINGEN)
18-11-2011 – TIVOLI DE HELLING (UTRECHT)
20-11-2011 – LVC (LEIDEN)
24-11-2011 – JOINERS (SOUTHAMPTON)
25-11-2011 – GARAGE (LONDON)
26-11-2011 – RESCUE ROOMS (NOTTINGHAM)
27-11-2011 – ACADEMY 3 (MANCHESTER)
28-11-2011 – CATHOUSE (GLASGOW)
29-11-2011 – 02 ACADEMY 2 (NEWCASTLE)
01-12-2011 – 02 ACADEMY 2 (BIRMINGHAM)
02-12-2011 – THE HAUNT (BRIGHTON)
03-12-2011 – LA SCENE BASTILLE (PARIS)

Tickets are on sale now! Catch some of their tunes after the jump.

- CG

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Tags: Aliases, Frak The Gods Tour, Safer Than Reality, Textures, The Ocean

European Bands: Win A Free Photo Shoot With ProgHippie.com!

Filed Under: Contests

Jun.17, 2011

ProgHippie, a Swiss-based music promotion bureau specializing in booking, band management, and photography, are giving away a free photo shoot to one lucky band anywhere in Europe, all traveling expenses paid! ProgHippie has done promotional shoots for Heavy Blog favorites The Ocean (above) and Uneven Structure, so most of our readers should be somewhat familiar with their work and are aware of their quality.

Here are the specifics for the contest:

The offer is valid throughout Europe. We cover all expenses for travelling to your place and delivering the winners a kick ass shoot. We’ll be at their disposal for a full day — the only two things they’d have to give in is a place to sleep for a night or two (this can well be a sofa at a private place) and to make sure the band and us get to the various locations etc (so transport on the day of the shoot between locations etc is your responsibilty. aka the car we’ll need for that).

As for the content/set-up/compositions we’re open to ideas and will gladly help you to think of a great thing. Want an underwater shoot? Out in the nature? Black-metally with warpaint behind a tree? Naked in a super market? We’ll think about that together with the winner band.

Sounds fair to me! Here’s how to enter: Just send an e-mail to hello[at]proghippie[dot]com, containing

Your band name
Location of your band
Links to your band such as Websites, Facebook pages, Reverb Nation, Myspace etc.
Your contact details
and maybe something funny like a photo of a cat wearing a hat or something. We love that kind of stuff.

You have until Friday, June 24th to enter! Be sure to like ProgHippie on Facebook as well.

- JR

Tags: ProgHippie, The Ocean, Uneven Structure

Tommy Rogers of Between the Buried and Me: The HBIH Interview

Filed Under: Interviews

May.27, 2011

Original photo credit: Christian Searcy

Hot off the heels of a successful launch of their latest EP The Parallax: The Hypersleep Dialogues, Between the Buried and Me recently hit the road on a headlining tour, bringing metal heavyweights The Ocean and Job For A Cowboy in tow. At the last stop of the tour in Asheville, North Carolina, fellow writer Paul “Uncle Muscles” Meisner and I hopped aboard the unassuming RV that our heroes had been spending the better part of a month crammed in. To say we were nervous would be putting it lightly. I mean, we’ve been praising their work for the better part of this site’s two year existence, but vocalist and keyboard player Tommy Rogers was easy going enough to make our twenty minute conversation comfortable and friendly, and not a completely awkward waste of time.

The interview runs a a tad but long, so get comfy!

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Tags: Between The Buried and Me, Devin Townsend, Devin Townsend Project, Giles, Intensus, Job For A Cowboy, The Ocean, Thomas Giles, Tommy Rogers

“She Was The Universe“, Is Now A Video?

Filed Under: Video

May.27, 2011

Whoever ‘she’ is, being the universe must have been pretty boss, but I guess she got fired for the whole Rapture non-show or summink, because she’s now a video – although a pretty cool one if you ask me.

Yep, this is my ever-dumb way of introducing The Ocean‘s new video for the song “She Was The Universe“, which is one of my favourite tracks from Anthropocentric, an album of killer tunes. It features guest spots from Battersea Power Station, someone who looks like the dude from the cover of Obzen, and the eye from Tool‘s Lateralus artwork. Or possibly from Nickelback‘s third album…

Anyway, I believe The Ocean are still kicking around the UK at the moment, playing a couple of headlining shows before heading back to Europe (lucky bastards). Catch them tonight, if you’re in Hull, with Diascorium and a few other bands.

- CG

Tags: Anthropocentric, She Was The Universe, The Ocean

Relive The Ocean’s Recent U.S. Tour – Part I!

Filed Under: Tours and Rumors of Tours, Video

May.19, 2011

For those unlucky enough to have missed The Ocean‘s recent run around North America and Canada with Between the Buried and Me and Job for a Cowboy, you now have a chance to share in the magic with the first in a series of tour chronicles from the ‘Hypersleep Dialogues Trek’. Clearly it was not all sunshine and daisies; I won’t spoil it, but there seemed to be a fair bit of sorrow drowning…

The Ocean Tour Vlog, Part I from Chris dB on Vimeo.

It sucks that they’ve had such a bad run of luck lately, what with being robbed in Spain, and having a poor time of early closing on the UK tour with The Dillinger Escape Plan due to our shitty club nights. But hey, adversity is good for the spirit, right!

We’ll post the rest when we get wind of them.

- CG

Tags: Anthropocentric, Between The Buried and Me, Heliocentric, Job For A Cowboy, The Dillinger Escape Plan, The Ocean

New Job For A Cowboy Cover Art Is Sweet As Always

Filed Under: Audio, General News, Upcoming releases

May.09, 2011

I’m sure you know by now that we aren’t really huge Job For A Cowboy fans here at Heavy Blog; in fact, there are probably a few writers that despise them. I do appreciate their evolution from run of the mill deathcore to respectable death metal, though. Shit’s not bad, and I have no qualms about seeing them sandwiched between The Ocean and Between The Buried And Me this weekend. One thing that JFAC does get consistently right is their album artwork. Like Iron Maiden, Megadeth, and Children of Bodom, JFAC seems to carry a mascot through each album, and unlike the cliche grim reaper that Bodom has, I like this character as it’s something different.

The Gloom EP artwork above is a bit different from their previous work, but it’s still pretty rad by any means. If you haven’t heard it yet, you can listen to the new song “Misery Reformatory” below.