Their second album of the year, The Ocean start off Anthropocentric with the title track. It comes in slightly muted musically, partly down to the production, allowing Loic Rossetti's vocals to strike first before everything is lifted into place and the full force of the band comes bearing down. The riffs are fantastically heavy and intricate with guitar parts darting in between one another constantly. Even the softer part of the song has that same tension that's carried through the song, it's almost Opeth in terms of... well about everything really. It all sounds so massive, but at the same time the individual instruments and parts are given enough room to move and breathe. The only thing that was a slight let down was that the clean vocals almost sound autotuned at times, it occurs a few times throughout the album, but it's something that you'll either pick out or not and on multiple listens you'll probably not even notice. Anthropocentric leads into the first part of a trilogy of songs The Grand Inquisitor I - Karamazov Baseness. It's nice and sludgy sounding, something that was apparently lacking from its sister album Heliocentric, with a great sense of storytelling going on that's based on discussions between the two eponymous leads from The Brothers Karamasov, one an atheist and one a monk. The three songs form the core of the album's concept, critiquing Christianity and the idea that the universe revolves around men (hence the album title). It's lofty stuff, but put together very well.

She Was The Universe is a somewhat quick paced song that continues with the strum und drang in what is a surprisingly straight forward song. The vocals in the chorus almost sound like something from a grunge band (in a good way). For He That Wavereth... is a short little post metal piece that contrasts pretty well against was has been a near full on assault for the past three songs before The Grand Inquisitor II - Roots & Locusts ramps us the speed and aggression again. Some of the guitar lines on this are pretty cool to listen to as the bob and weave about, like a more vicious Crack The Skye era Mastodon. The trilogy finishes with a more avant-garde type of song in The Grand Inquisitor III - A Tiny Grain Of Faith. Compared to the rather straight-faced approach to the rest of the album it stands out, but it manages to inject a sense of eeriness into the proceedings even if it’s sadly short lived.

Things swing back into position with Sewers Of The Soul, which is kind of interchangeable with the rest of the songs at this point. Good, but nothing to separate it from the crowd sadly so it seems a bit like filler musically. Wille Zum Untergang on the other hand leads in with a little proggy/post metal moment. The effect with the snare drum here is smart with Luc Hess simulating a delay effect with his playing. It draws focus to the drums and I ended up concentrating on them throughout the intro more than the guitars. The whole song takes a fairly soft approach with a few little tweaks here and there to throw you off into thing it's going to head into something heavy, it even has a false post metal tremolo build up that usually signals the end of the song. Very cool indeed. Heaven TV feels like a bit of a let down after that, though it's saved by a little jazz infused part in the middle of the song that was a a highlight of the album. Finally, the last track appears in The Almightiness Contradiction. It begins very softly, with cello bouncing off the guitars to make everything feel forlorn as celli are apt at doing. The chorused vocals are a nice touch as well, especially at the end were the band throw out the most blatent comment on the album's theme.

There really isn't too much else to comment on. The production on the album is really good, the songs are really good and the performances are fantastic as well. It's nice to have a concept album that's not straight out of a widdly prog band, and while it's not a new thing to this genre it still seems very fresh. It is a fantastic album that's worth a few relistens to try and capture the whole theme.

On a side note, the band were robbed recently in Spain during their tour and lost over 6000 euros. The band are asking for donations when orders are placed for the album on their site. If you feel like buying the album feel a little generous and help them out a bit more, they deserve it at least!