For their fifth album, Oceans Of Slumber have traded progressive death metal suites for episodic, eclectic anthems. Vocalist Cammie Beverly guides us through their evolution – and the anger that’s at the heart of Starlight And Ash.

Words: Matt Mills Images: The Heavy Glow/Jamie LaCombe

Oceans Of Slumber: psychotic cat not pictured, alas.

“We’re making our own space. We’re not trying to fit into any defined genre.”

“ Sorry,I’m gonna yell at my cat real quick,” Cammie Beverly apologises. The vocalist of Texan progressive metal idols Oceans Of Slumber is sat in her living room in Houston, and her one-year-old feline is destroying her curtains. “She’s a rescue from my husband’s family land, so she’s a farm cat. And she’s psychotic.”

It’s refreshing seeing Cammie struggle with something so ordinary as she joins Prog on a Zoom call. Even if you only know her through her singing, her voice is strikingly and consistently extraordinary. Stick on Oceans Of Slumber’s new album, Starlight And Ash, and you’ll find 11 songs driven by her pipes, which are clear and powerful, yet adorned with an unmistakable Deep South smoothness. They’re the vocal equivalent of sinking yourself into a hot bubble bath, or enjoying a relaxing massage.