…and Oceans has an interesting history. I remember it vividly, from younger days, growing up on old Metallica tapes and KROC broadcasting out of Reno, Nevada. The first A.O. album I heard was The Dynamic Gallery Of Thoughts, and it was an amazing surprise in its time. Maybe it still surprises people.
You can’t deny, these songs are fun and well crafted from the standpoint of melodic creativity. Not to mention the technical precision in the instrumentation & vocals.
Some of us who were born in the early 80’s found ourselves growing up during the dawn of black metal. It was an explosion of music and creativity that swept the entire world — with Norway and Sweden battling for who might be called the first ones to intensify and maximize this particular brand of extreme metal music.
Black metal continues sweeping it every day. If you’re a fan of the combination of high-speed, blasting drums, soaring symphonic keyboards, and truly aggressive vocals.
Personally, I find Cosmic World Mother to be an incredibly appealing album, one that always brings me joy to hear. I bought it early, right as it was released, on at least two colors of vinyl.
This is an album I’ll continue collecting obsessively, if only to honor its beauty and precision. Early …and Oceans has its own unique appeal, and perhaps more unique personality, so I highly recommend giving their old material a try. It’s refreshingly weird, breaking free of traditions in many cases. Finally, a band that’s not doing what everyone else is doing exactly the same way as everyone else!
…and Oceans hasn’t always been known to make perfectly consistent, head-banging blast fests like this. They’re usually so experimental that most metalheads would feel at least a little bit uncomfortable with, for example, their jarringly un-metal techno sections on Cypher (2002).