Will Marshall
In the wake of previous album Holocene and its touring cycle, The Ocean went through upheaval as a number of members departed, including singer Loïc Rosetti and drummer Paul Seidel, who had helped define their sonic identity over several albums, including the beloved Phanerozoic double-header. Rebuilt by bandleader Robin Staps, the lineup now features two vocalists in Enrico Tiberi and Lane Shi (aka solo artist otay:onii and ex-Elizabeth Colour Wheel), alongside new guitarists Emmanuel Jessua and Marco Gennaro, and new drummer Jordi Farré. With such a tectonic shift in personnel, doubts and concerns around the ongoing sound were inevitable – and Solaris not only puts them to bed but also makes people doubt why they were worried in the first place.
Its opening track eases in, harkening back to the more electronic-driven sound developed with Holocene, though with lines that will be called back to across the album (such as “milk of my dreams”, which appears as its own song and in the epilogue). ‘Departure Song’ is the first song proper, and you’d be forgiven for thinking Loïc was still in the band, so similar are his and Enrico’s voices initially. Once Lane Shi enters, though, it’s immediately apparent just how much she adds to the band.
With a second voice, a whole world opens up for harmonies and vocal interplay; on ‘Light Pollution’ she utters melodic vocalisations between phrases from Tiberi, while on ‘Belligerence’ she delves into shrieks and screams to compliment the song’s aggression. Tiberi himself is a touch more operatic, with a more cavernous roar. Instrumentally, on the surface it might seem like The Ocean as we know them, but with Solaris inspired by Andrey Tarkovsky’s film of the same name, it swiftly disabuses listeners of that notion as it goes on an odyssey to the stars. In other words, it’s boldly progressive, expansive, and perhaps their most ambitious album in years.
The album arguably hinges around a three-song run; ‘Simulacra’, a 17-plus minute epic that is emblematic of their approach to post-metal, ‘Belligerence’, which is summed up best by its title; and ‘Ultima Esperanza’ (Spanish for ‘last hope’). ‘Simulacra’ grows through arresting melody, Lane Shi offering harmonies and vocal counterpoints to Enrico Tiberi, less delving into metal’s crushing depths than it is using it as a backdrop for expansive, grandiose tales of exploration and referencing simulations becoming truth, the philosophical musings a well loved hallmark of the band’s approach to cerebral heavy music.
While it was released as a single, the ten-minute ‘Belligerence’ takes on new life in the album, a bruising examination of the parallels between artists and political leaders in their explorative nature. Its intense, combative nature reflects the themes of arguing, how destructive contained anger is, and how belligerence is seen as something worth pursuing rather than being questioning and inquisitive. Even following such vast songs, ‘Ultima Esperanza’ finds new ground to tread. Its electronic and synth-driven intro gives way to Lane Shi utilising her full range from ethereal melody to haunting wails, her voice something unthinkable in previous iterations of the band but indispensable to this one.
The biggest departure comes with ‘Milk of my Dreams’, an arresting electronic composition featuring Tangerine Dream’s Thorsten Quaeschning that’s totally alien to what’s come before. It’s testament to The Ocean and Solaris’ undaunted explorative nature then that it still works as the closing sounds of the album instead of something more familiar. Sonically charting the extremes of space or the unknowable reaches of daring explorations that inspired the album, it’s an odd choice for a final single, but a masterstroke to end the album on.
2023’s Holocene ended on a vision of a desolate, dying world; Solaris reaches far beyond that, embarking on their own radical journey into the unknown. The changing of two-thirds of the band’s lineup has reinvigorated them, with two vocalists opening totally new worlds to explore. The songs bookending the album are co-ordinates: first those of their home studio in Berlin, the new line-up first all met at, and the last referencing Ultima Esperanza Province in Southern Patagonia. In many ways, the album therefore ends back where it starts, but the journey it takes you on is nothing short of breathtaking and one of this year’s and the band’s finest releases.