I have just realised, that the mighty The Ocean Collective (about 30 participants on the last record!) has no own thread for open discussion. So here it is! Discuss, spread the word!

For my part: I saw them live in Vienna recently, and I was impressed. The collective was represented by a powerful group of five (two guitars, bass, drums, two shouters and samples sideways...), which showed a crushing performance and kept an adoring audience bouncing and headbanging throughout the show. I am likely to say, that the live-sound was even more aggressive and to the point than the sound on the records. Just check them out!

Concerning the records: the guys seem to be really young, so the mature and complex songwriting surprises me even more. Some parts are symphonic indeed, but most of the time they create an almost epic sound tumbled over by aggressive metalcore-attacks. Precambrian is the last, much acclaimed album, which is my favourite so far. But there are still Aeolian and Fluxion - and I would be thankful, if someone could tell me, what one thinks of Fluxion, which I do not know yet... So, share your opinions!

Its weird, their debut EP was a very nice instrumental album... but on their full-lenghts (specially Aeolian) the vocalist simply never shut up. It gets really annoying, plus the metalcore era sucks imo.

Other than that is a good band, I will check out the 2 albums that will come next year.

Just listened to Anthropocentric... now that's a breath of fresh air. An interesting alloy of metalcore, sludge and progressive/technical twists, and post-metal/atmospheric themes. I really don't remember how Precambrian sounded like, but this one I want to listen to once again.

I too have been getting into this band. I have all their releases & each one is peculiar in its own way, I love when bands are "genre-less"