Despite the many accolades that they’ve received over the past decade, Oceans of Slumber have never rested on their laurels. The Houston heavies have come to redefine the Southern Gothic by casting their tales of hope and despair against an ever-shifting backdrop of progressive metal. While it was produced by their long-time collaborator and GRAMMY nominee Joel Hamilton, the band’s sixth album and first for Season of Mist expands their vision to dark, cinematic new heights.
“A vengeful prog metal monster that needs to be heard”, Metal Hammer writes in a four-star review.
Where Gods Fear to Speak comes out tomorrow, Friday, September 13, but you can hear all ten monumental songs today by listening to the full album stream on the Season of Mist YouTube channel.
Listen to Where Gods Fear to Speak.
Where Gods Fear to Speak comes out September 13 on Season of Mist.
Pre-order & Stream
https://orcd.co/oceansofslumberwheregodsfeartospeakalbum
Oceans of Slumber defy any and all conventions. Where Gods Fear to Speak opens with more of the sultry, doom metal headbanging that the band’s long-time acolytes have come to expect, but the album’s spellbinding title track breaks entirely new ground. Punishing blast beats and a blackened torrent of melodic tremolo picking collide with powerhouse cleans, a skyrocketing guitar solo and synths that swirl like the aura of a mystical planet.
So what are we to call this otherworldly occurrence?
“Dark cinematic metal” says the band’s maestro Dobber Beverly. Underground metalheads will always recognize him as the drummer for grindcore legends Insect Warfare, but Dobber is a classically trained pianist who composed every grand note on Where Gods Fear to Speak. “We’ve taken the raw and heavier direction of our last two albums and elevated it to the scale of a blockbuster IMAX movie”.
Staying true to Ocean of Slumber’s irreverent musings, Where Gods Fear to Speak takes more inspiration from The Handmaid’s Tale, The Dark Tower and Cormac McCarthy than it does Opeth. Each song acts as another gripping plot twist along a narrative arc that’s part science fiction, part western gunslinger with a heavy dose of post-apocalyptic romance. Lead single “Poem of Ecstasy” splices together an album’s worth of stand-out moments into its own mini-epic, cutting from a moonlight piano sonata to outlaw country, doom-laden power metal and what can only be described as “dystopian grindcore”.
“I’ll do everything to stay by your side” frontwoman Cammie Beverly belts, her cleans pushing back against the charging blast beats like a force field.
Performing such a radical play on extreme metal requires a talented cast of characters. Dobber’s Necrofier bandmate Semir Ozerkan adds heat with harsh backing vocals and warm but bruising bass fills, while co-guitarists Alex Davis and Chris Kritikos roar through Where Gods Fear to Speak like a sandstorm. The album also gets a lift from two special guests. Moonspell’s Fernando Ribeiro casts his big bad shadow over the chugging, rumbling “Run From the Light”. Amidst a spirited tug of war between distorted tremolo picking and folksy acoustic strumming, “Prayer” is visited by gothic angel Mikael Stanne of Dark Tranquility.
Even with all that talent on display, Oceans of Slumber still cede the spotlight to their leading lady. Cammie has always possessed one of the strongest voices in metal. Even though the album was recorded a cool 8,000 feet above sea level in Bogotá, Colombia, the grueling altitude couldn’t stop her bottomless belt from scaling the slippery crush of “The Given Dream”. But Where Gods Fear to Speak has her flexing a guttural new muscle.
“I’ve always wanted to do death growls”, Cammie says. “Where Gods Fear to Speak presented the perfect opportunity. Mixing harsh vocals in with my cleans speaks to the internal struggle between pleasure and pain that’s at the heart of this album”.
If the Oceans of Slumber’s impromptu cover of Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game” is the doomed end credits score to Where Gods Fear to Speak, then “Impermanence of Fate” is the album’s climactic finale battle. “I know my name and what it means / and what I have to say”, Cammie sings with all her might as the band rise up behind her with the jaw-dropping magnitude of a tidal wave.
“Every time you make a new record, you think it’s the best”, Cammie and Dobber say, “but Where Gods Fear to Speak easily has some of the best songs we’ve ever written. It sounds like an energetic, pissed-off band, with enigmatic storytelling and all those magical things”.
On Where Gods Fear to Speak, Oceans of Slumber remake progressive metal in their own dark, cinematic image.
More advanced praise for Where Gods Fear to Speak
“Simultaneously the heaviest and most melodic record they have ever made…Oceans of Slumber have given the best possible reply to those that questioned their vision. Where Gods Fear to Speak is a deeply moving and monstrously heavy next chapter in one of modern metal’s most fascinating stories” – Blabbermouth (9/10)
“Where Gods Fear to Speakcontinues their astonishing streak of encapsulating, rich albums that take you to another plane of reality” – Distorted Sound (8/10)
“Serves as yet another reminder as to why they deserve so much more” – No Clean Singing
“It will confront your will. It will expand your mind. It will pull at your heart” – The Prog Mind (9/10)
“The delicate balance of rhythmic bombast and melodies that keep you wanting more is a chemistry that is hard to find but the collective members in Oceans of Slumber have me stunned” – No Echo
“At the end of the day, this still sounds like an Oceans of Slumber record, it’s just a record that has a lot more heaviness while still keeping those nuances alive and well. – A&P Reacts
“Another stunning release in a stunning run of albums” – The Razors Edge
“A stellar album, packed with the highest quality doom-drenched progressive metal, and rich in depth and feeling” – Wonder Box Metal
