Ethereal Metal Webzine

Review by Ryan Murray | December 1, 2019

While I’ve never heard of these guys, Deep As Ocean has got to be one of the best metal bands I’ve heard in a long time!  Deep As Ocean easily reminds me of great bands such as Breaking Benjamin, All That Remains, As I Lay Dying, Three Days Grace (w/ Adam Gontier) and others.  The clean vocals on the album strongly remind me of a cross between Adam Gontier (Ex: Three Days Grace, Currently Saint Asonia) and John Cooper (Skillet).

Crossing Parallels – A title track as an intro, I love it!  This 1:39 long intro starts out with an ethereal sound that give you the feeling of crossing into a different dimension.  A bit of a beat starts to kick in around :19 seconds and then the guitars and drums fill out the ethereal sounds and give this intro some more atmosphere.  This gives the listener a small idea as to where the album is going musically. The last :22 seconds pull it right back to the ethereal sound that we opened with, with a light guitar and synth pulse in the background.  

Hourglass – This song features Mattéo Gelsomino of Novelists and hits hard right away at :14 seconds in!  The guitars in this song are killer! To me, the title for this track is perfect! I feel this song is about how limited our time is. We only have so much time, and what we do with it really matters.  Life is choices, right?

“Break free
How many voices’ left unspoken?
Break free
How many tears we’ve shed and left unheard?
Freedom has it’s costs, nothing is for granted
We don’t pull the reins, we are dragged down
Grain by grain we are becoming
The sandy bottom
Of the hourglass”

This chorus really speaks to me.  A few years ago, I faced a really toxic work environment.  I had a choice to make. I could let the voices destroy me and allow them to break me down, or I could chose to break free.  If we don’t take control of these situations, we get dragged down by them. I would no longer remain ‘unspoken’ and I chose to rise above and was able to break free.  

Knives & Flames – This song starts out aggressively vocally, and it’s a perfect fit for the meaning I take away from it.  For me, this song is about being betrayed and the feeling of betrayal. We all have faced that person who we’ve trusted for a long time.  That person that we’ve unguarded our hearts around and let our guard down. That person that we’ve trusted like family, only to have them stab us in the back.  Like fire, when we’re stabbed in the back by people we’ve entrusted our hearts to, (family, close friends, significant other, etc..) it burns.

“I’m tired of lying
And sayin’ everything is fine
I’m tired of lying
And sayin’ everything is fine
It’s like playing with fire
Until it burns inside
Trust has a cost
And I will be cold as a knife
I give up
pretending
I don’t know anything
I’ve forgiven
you once…”

I, as I’m sure many of us can relate to this.  Sometimes, we’re so hurt by things that we foolishly seek revenge.  But does revenge really solve anything? For me, this song is not only about the feeling of betrayal, but also what we chose to do with being betrayed.

Oblivion – This song starts off with clean vocals and screaming vocals at the same time.  After the vocal 4 measure intro with some underlying synth, the main riff kicks in, which kinda reminds me of Breaking Benjamin.  

We all make mistakes, but do we ever learn from them?  Sometimes we make the same mistakes over and over again without ever learning anything.  The writer of this songs seems to feel that we’re headed for our own demise, or “oblivion”, if we don’t learn from our mistakes.  It’s a pattern of self destructive behavior that needs to be broken.  

“Oblivion
How can we get there?
Have we not suffered enough?
We have never learned
from the faults of it all.”

We’ve all gotten to a point this point where we continuously suffer from the same mistakes over and over again, yet we’re sometimes too stubborn to want to fix anything and learn from our past decisions.

The Sinking Ship – This song has a more ethereal intro, but kicks into its main groove at about :17 seconds in. If this song isn’t a wake up call, I don’t know what is!  As a society, we’ve become complacent, apathetic and careless. I feel like although the song seems to call us ‘the sinking ship’, that it also talks about the ability to fight back against that downward spiral and to fight our way back.

“We are the sinking ship
I refuse to sink
Into this poisoned sea
At least I’m trying to swim.”

Whenever I feel myself falling into a pattern of complacency and apathy, I “refuse to sink”.  We need to first be aware that we’re falling into this pattern and need to care enough to want to rise above it.

Underwater – This song starts with its main riff right off the bat, and it’s catchy and right in your face.  About :20 seconds in the vocals start off aggressive, but has a great balance with clean vocals overlaying! This song, for me, is about the false sense of security we all can get from loneliness.  Sometimes when life gets too difficult, we tend to go into our shell of wanting to be alone, and we tend to shut people out, especially those who truly care for us.

“My enemy
Is my loneliness
It resides in me
It’s invisible
My enemy
A part of me
I can’t escape it…”

Our loneliness isn’t always visible, and it eats away at us from the inside out.  When we’re facing “the abyss”, we need to first realize that our enemy is loneliness, then we need to surround ourselves with those we love and trust to help redirect us.  For me, I also lean on my faith as a Christian when I’m facing difficulties that drag me down.  

Feels Like Nothing – Featuring Andy Pali of Sharks In Your Mouth, this song starts off with an ethereal sound with electric guitar and synth droning on Bb creating an awesome atmosphere.  The main riff kicks in at :18 seconds and doesn’t disappoint!  

The band says this song is influenced by the series “13 Reasons Why” and also the death of Chester Bennington.  

For me, this song encourages empathy towards those who suffer with mental illness and depression.  So many are quick to judge, but instead we need to be loving and understanding and to be there for those suffering.  We also need to understand that at times, people are so far down that they have a hard time receiving love and support.  

“How can I love myself?
I was too blind to see all the love I got from y’all” 

We also need to understand that at times, people are so far down that they are blinded to the love and support they are receiving.

“I felt alone and maybe the only one
When I tied the noose
Too late”

This line really hits hard for me.  I lost my God-Mother to suicide by hanging and to this day, I have mixed emotions.  On one hand I still feel anger and hurt, but on the other, I try to put myself into her shoes.  I still to this day try to understand what she was facing that she felt that helpless and desperate.

Floating Anchor – This track is definitely one of my favorites on this album!  It starts off a bit differently with what sounds like muted guitars, but quickly kicks into high gear at :6 seconds with the main riff and vocals.  

In this journey we call life, we all need to find our purpose and we look for meaning in our lives in different places. A lot of times though we struggle with things in life, and feel like we have no where to turn.  As a Christian, this song actually really speaks to me, because I feel that my faith in God is my anchor. 

“Find a way to feel alive
Your best reason to survive
Fight the war you have inside
No matter how long you have to try
If you don’t try you will never succeed
Standing still is a passive acceptance
Of the defeat, so pick your guns up
Aim what you want and take your best shot…”

For me, this part really speaks to me.  When I was younger, I went through a lot of verbal abuse in school, as well as some physical bullying.  I went through life angry and alone. I was even angry at God for the longest time. In 2008, everything changed for me.  The anchor that was holding me down, the fear of rejection, became my salvation when I realized that my salvation was found in God.  He took all of the fear, shame and rejection that I had felt for so long and changed my perspective on life.

Black Rose – And here we are at the end of the album and what an end it is!  This track, for me, is a not so typical love song. Not only is the song saying that a loved one is a light in difficult times, it’s also saying that you have to put work into the relationship to keep it alive. Even when facing difficulties, we need to stay alive and focused on putting work into the relationship to keep it working. 

This song actually has mostly clean vocals and some nice synth grooves throughout.  Another favorite for sure!

“A rose with no thorns
Is incomplete
It’s like something missing
As well as our love
I feel it stings
Reminds us we’re alive
You’re the light that
Illuminates my eyes
You’re the light that
never ends to shine…”

“Black Rose” is a perfect title for this song.  Just like a rose with no thorns is incomplete, a life without some strife doesn’t exist.  The lines above remind us that love stings at times, but it reminds us that we’re alive. Just because we face hard times in love, doesn’t mean that we still don’t need each other.  

Deep As Ocean has created an awesome work in “Crossing Parallels”!  This album is a great blend of power, harsh vocals, clean vocals and melodies.  I HIGHLY recommend this album for any fans of bands such as Breaking Benjamin, As I Lay Dying, All That Remains, Three Days Grace and others alike. I give this album 4.9 out of 5.0 stars!  

“Crossing Parallels” is set to release December 13th, 2019, so be sure to check it out!

Official Band Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/deepasocean/