Crossing Oceans Of Time
In late 2006, The Ocean set themselves the loftiest of goals: to tell Earth’s entire history through music. Three albums and 14 years later, the postmetal connoisseurs have finally completed their mission. Founder Robin Staps tells Prog about their ambitious musical journey through space and time.
Words: Matt Mills Image: Andy Faulk
M ore than four and a half billion years ago, a centre of gravity in our Solar System pulled in large amounts of dust and gas to create a giant, floating ball. One hundred million years later, this sphere collided with the planet Theia and the impact produced its own natural satellite, our Moon. It was the start of everything for us, and for The Ocean, it’s also the start of their album series which began with 2007’s Precambrian. Through a trilogy of concept albums – comprising Precambrian, 2018’s Phanerozoic I:
Palaeozoic and the current Phanerozoic II: Mesozoic/Cenozoic – The Ocean tell the history of the Earth. No stone is left unturned, from the hellish origins of the Hadean eon, to the mighty dinosaurs of the Jurassic period, to the present day. It’s been an enormous task that’s taken the band more than a decade to complete, spawned purely from the trudging and unpredictable nature of their early postmetal sounds.