Ocean ‘Here Where Nothing Grows’ CD 2005

If devastatingly Heavy Droned out Doom is your kinda thing, then Portland’s Ocean are certainly a band you should be checking out. ‘Here Where Nothing Grows’ is their debut release on Important Records and features 3 monstrously HEAVY tracks weighing in at a staggering total of 65 mins!

As the opening track ‘First Reign’ creeps into it’s 21 minutes of life with its resonating feedback, the sheer heaviness of Ocean soon becomes apparent when the main riff erupts from your speakers like Mount Vesuvius seconds before it destroyed Pompeii and slowly crawls along, pulverising your ears drums with it’s mammoth, wailing sound as each note is allowed to eerily ring out before being hit by the next. I guess you could say Ocean are predominantly an instrumental band as the vocals are few and far between and it’s around 5 minutes in to ‘First Reign’ when the vocals break through the despondent sounds with it’s deep guttural growls helping drive this journey of torture into another realm.

The CD continues with ‘Salt’ (19 mins) and closes with ‘The Fall’ (24 mins) which really just continue from where ‘First Reign’ began, as although there listed as separate tracks you get the distinct impression that ‘Here Where Nothing Grows’ was written as one piece of music. This could come across as saying this album is long, boring & repetitive, but believe me it isn’t, as each piece manages to induce the listener, like on ‘Salt’ which builds into an almost climatic epic giving them an almost Neurosis feel at times. And ‘The Fall’ which starts with a more up tempo beat before taking you on a journey of fear & despair as it soon descends back down to it’s Drone roots with resonating feedback and eerie ghost like screams before approaching it’s dramatic close which builds and builds on their already ultra heavy sound giving an almost Funeral March feel.

Label: Important Records
Website: N/A

Scribed by: Lee Edwards