RockBox - [request] Ocean Chief

[request] Ocean Chief - two albums

Ocean Chief are a sludge/stoner doom band from Sweden. They have released two full-lengths, The Oden Sessions, on Church Of Doom Recordings and Tor on 12th Records. The music is a combination of heavy stoner doom passages, with sludge influences, and sometimes very upbeat and groovy moments. The band specializes in extremely long songs, the longest on their debut being 25 minutes in total.
Current Line up :
Björn Andersson : Guitar
Jocke Pettersson : Bass
Tobias Tobbe Larsson : Vocals, Drums

Quote:

After 63 minutes of this, I feel like my cranium is caving in. More bottom-end than Star Jones.

While Sweden’s Ocean Chief doesn’t quite display the modern doom pedigree qualities of a Reverend Bizarre or Orodruin on the orthodox side of things, or YOB and Electric Wizard on the doom-on-acid cache, they still wield the low and slow like champs. Sure Sleep paved the way for this brand of acid doom, Electric Wizard took it to a new level and YOB picked up the torch when the ‘Wiz took a tumble. It’s been done before, no doubt about it, but like most heavy music today, the beauty lies in the interpretation. And Ocean Chief interpret like NATO house staff. With aplomb and an eye to the prolific.

This is bottom-end driven, heavy hypno-doom, lot’s of emphasis on elongated down-tempo rhythmic passages. The voice-from-a-worm hole vokills are distorted and mixed down, putting the emphasis on the music taking form around them rather than on the vocals itself. The result is that The Oden Sessions gives me a mental image of Zeus on a heroin-nod. Way powerful, but on an ethereal downhill slide.

63 minutes is a lot of time, and grant it this kind of thing would probably be better off at 45 minutes or so… the 25 minute-and-change epic “Oden” could have definitely used a trim. I’m all for long songs as long as they go somewhere and do something. Plodding for plodding’s sake is all well and good, but I need a musical slap in the face after 10 minutes or so. Desoite the time factor, The Oden Sessions is a very nice first effort for the band and a great way to kick off the new Church of Doom record label.

Ocean Chief - 2004 - The Oden Sessions

1. Sword Of Justice (17:05)
2. Oden (25:10)
3. Gates Of Fire (10:23)
4. The Ocean Chief Rules My World (10:17)

Total playing time: 62:55

Quote:

Now I remember hearing this existed for the first time...shock and awe, of course. I am a huge fan of The Oden Sessions, the previous full-length outing by this excellent underground stoner doom band. I loved the combination of groove, overdriven, sludgy guitars, and weed-inflected vocals from mainman (and drummer?!) Tobias Larsson. So, when I saw that this had leaked to the wondrous Internet, I snatched it immediately.

However, what I got was over 80 minutes. As those of you in the know understand, a regular CD can fit only 80 or fewer minutes of audio...so what was the deal here, clocking in at almost 90 minutes? I eventually discovered it was a demo recording, somehow arrived on the Internet by some careless fool and tagged as the new full-length by these Swedestoners.

After months and months, this was FINALLY released on 12th Records and I avoided buying it forever. I recently purchased it and listened to it and, of course, it's every bit as ridiculously heavy as I expected. There's even a harsher, gruffer vocal delivery by the aforementioned Tobias. This album was also recorded in three days...wait, nevermind that, it was also MIXED somewhere within those 3 days. Talk about busy guys...sheesh. Then again, considering these are probably jam sessions put direct to a mixing board, I'm not THAT surprised, but it still seems pretty insane. Anyway, if you get this, you're getting just what you should expect. Fans of Electric Wizard, Ufomammut, etc...take heed, and PRAISE YER FUCKIN OCEAN CHIEF!!

Ocean chief - 2005 - Tor

1. Gallions From the Sun
2. Sorcerer on Dope
3. Praise Your Ocean Chief
4. Tor

Doom

Stoner doom

Vbr

219.33 MB

11 files

28/12/2008

Seed(s): 1, Leecher(s): 0 = 1 Peer(s)

01/12/2024 00:44:30