Oceans Of Slumber__
The Texan prog metallers get deeply personal with new album.
“We had been touring with bands like Enslaved, the band were doing really well, the relationships in the band were good. But then I had the dissolving of a 20-year long relationship with my then-wife. And one of the catalysts was the realisation – and this is when you know you’re getting older – that
I was finding out more and more about what I wanted from life, and about the things that she wanted. And just how much they differed.”
The mood is one of personal reflection as Prog catches up with Oceans Of Slumber founder, drummer and pianist Dobber Beverly. Speaking from his hometown in Texas, Beverly is humble and softly spoken, and his stoicism is remarkable as he proceeds to ruminate on the turbulence and internal struggles that plagued the heavy, soulful proggers over the past 18 months following the breakdown of his marriage. But as it happened, there was someone trying to reach out to Beverly amid the interminable chaos – and that individual would eventually provide refuge and solace for a fellow creative soul locked in turmoil.
“Cammie [Gilbert, Oceans Of Slumber’s vocalist] was in a long-term relationship with somebody who was in a similar way,” Beverly explains. “The more time that she and I spent together, the better it felt. She’s incredible – we’re a pretty good match in a lot of ways. It was nice but obviously it came at a cost to other people – which is something that I don’t care for. To feel the fallout of something like that – it created a lot of powerful and negative
Oceans Of Slumber’s third album was born out of heartbreak and grief, but its creators managed to find catharsis with the help of one another. The band’s founder Dobber Beverly discusses the journey that he and the band took to get here.
feelings. Which brings us to the new record: absolutely everything about it is about this, our personal lives and the application of it to many other people who felt the same thing.”
The new record in question is the recently released The Banished Heart, Oceans Of Slumber’s third full-length and the longawaited follow-up to 2015’s critically acclaimed Winter. Whereas the latter was more a personal evolution in grand romanticism and the deconstruction of being, album number three is a darker and more elaborate beast than its predecessor. And despite Beverly’s self-appointed role as the band talisman (“I’m like the final filter – I run through everything, then edit everything, rearrange or toss out”) it was Gilbert who had the significant hand in creating that mood this time around, taking full control of the lyrics.
“It’s the first time we’ve made a record where it’s been a personal injection of dismay,” Beverly explains. “Even with Winter it was a story about someone else, whereas with this record the story is about us. Cammie had the freedom and responsibility for the lyrical content, and I think that with her ability to summon what she has seen and gone through – and how she feels about me and us and the things around us – she absolutely elevated the record to the next level.”
Grandiose yet raw in its emotional volatility, and underpinned by an overwhelming sense of intimacy, The Banished Heart represents Oceans’ proverbial urge to purge – to channel past and previous struggles into an honest yet refined musical vision as they take the long hard road to perdition. The tender progressive nuances of their previous works remain intact, but there’s a pronounced sense of sonic evolution.
As an ensemble, visceral riffs and thundering drum licks are caressed by tranquil piano-driven interludes and searing melancholia. There’s also a devastating yet spellbinding duet (No Color, No Light) featuring Gilbert and Evergrey’s Tom S Englund. It’s as bewildering as it is beautiful, but given the overwhelming reaction to singles The Decay Of Disregard and The Banished Heart, the fans are relishing the diversity as much as the band are.
“The new music is obviously ramped up and more mature,” adds Beverly. “Sean [Gary, guitar] and I were just talking about it and
I was like, we have the ability to summon these Type O Negative to Paradise Lost and Insomnium types of songs – we’re essentially a very heavy band who also loved Pink Floyd and The Moody Blues. We have a lot of 70s progressive stuff because we grew up listening to that.”
Shooting the videos for both singles in his hometown also allowed the movie-obsessed Beverly to indulge in his passion for all things cinematic, and to build even further upon the band’s adoration for anything atmospheric. With a compelling emphasis on symbology and the occult, the visual aesthetic for The Decay Of Disregard is especially striking – the bones, the blood, the burning pianos. Was that Gilbert embracing her inner voodoo priestess?
“No, she’s not an active goth or pagan or anything!” he exclaims, chuckling at the implication. “Cammie is just heavily into bones and taxidermy – all these dark
“We’re essentially a very heavy band who also loved Pink Floyd and The Moody Blues. We have a lot of 70s progressive stuff because we grew up listening to that.”
things – so we were trying to give it a witchy feel. And with this band and scene, she’s able to express that love more.”
Like Winter, the theme of love and loss permeates The Banished Heart, which is vividly illustrated with lyrics such as: ‘This dark winding road/A long path ahead/A sound in the distance of light escaping/Through the haze a silhouette/A glimpse of reality/Only leading to nothing, where no light dwells.’ The title track is the heart of darkness which the entire record revolves around. Prog notes that the album is something of an immersive journey. Would Beverly agree?’
“It was absolutely intended that way. During the writing of Winter, my niece was killed in an accident. Watching my sister go through those things…” Beverly trails off, his voice wavering with emotion. “You can offer words, you can hug, but you can’t make sense of any of it. We need to have a place to take these thoughts and ideas – and with Gilbert’s father dying seven years ago. You don’t just write about it once then it goes away. It stays.
You find new ways to process it. When you combine it all – the fading of my love and life over the years. We have to find places to put these things – and then we can make that journey home.”
After realising that he needed to have complete control of the record from inception to birth, Beverly made the decision to produce The Banished Heart himself with “good buddy” Craig Douglas in a Texas recording studio. It was a process fraught with hardship (the state was devastated by flooding in 2017), but it provided further inspiration for the album. As did the many different artists and bands that played along in the background as the band jammed.
“There’s absolutely nothing but music playing where we record – everything from Emma Ruth Rundle to Chelsea Wolfe and of course droves of old things like Type O and Incantation,” he divulges. “It’s funnelling down to us in what we write – it’s diverse but all fitting at the same time.”
With a string of UK shows alongside Epica and Myrkur this month, Oceans Of Slumber are certainly striving to be the best they can be in 2018. As for personal ambitions, Beverly is a man on a mission – he’s determined to banish what he believes to be the skewed perception of the band’s music in the US.
“We’re trying to set our sights on how to expand ourselves in our own country,” he says. “America tends to either focus on technical bands or angsty bands: we’re not like either, so we are socially and musically unacceptable in the US. We are the ones choosing to make this music that’s proving to be extremely hard to market and get in front of people; we’re hoping this record is gonna change that.
“People can be like, here’s an American band that’s from Texas – somewhere they completely wouldn’t expect this kind of music to come from – and think that it’s actually worth their time, effort and money to support this band, buy a record or go to a show.”
“It’s the first time we’ve made a record where it’s been a personal injection of dismay.”