GLASS OCEAN
Aussie soap star ditches TV for musical theatrics with Northlane and AlithiA buddies.
UNLESS KYLIE MINOGUE decides to whack out an experimental rock opera, Tobias Atkins might be our first soap star-turned-progger. Appearing in the successful Aussie show Home And Away in 2004 as sun-kissed teen Henry Hunter, the Glass Ocean frontman had his first stab at showbiz at an early age, spurred by his parents’ theatrical background and their love of music from the stage.“That’s just soaked into my blood cells, I guess,” he muses.
Some might notice, on hearing Glass Ocean’s debut album, that 90s pop and rock was an inspiration too.
“When the HIStory album by Michael Jackson came out I got those VHS tapes with all the old and new videos and watched them absolutely religiously,” says Atkins. That was closely followed by the alt-rock classic Throwing Copper by Live.“I feel like I’m in the womb when I listen to it,” he adds.
Sugarcoated progressive rock, with the ambience of a date night in the 90s, has a viable vision and has already won Glass Ocean a following in their native Australia, where they have played with Anathema, Caligula’s Horse and TesseracT. Formed in 2013 when Tobias Atkins collaborated with Northlane drummer Nic Pettersen, the band’s early EPs – Glass Ocean (2014) and II (2015) – delved deep into the ambient potential of layered guitars, jazz drums, dancefloor rhythms and Atkins’ Prince-meetsEddie Vedder vocals. Today, Pettersen is no longer a full-time member of the band, although he still plays an integral role in the songwriting, and the five-piece that makes up Glass Ocean is a mark of the band finding its footing. On their full-length debut, The Remnants Of Losing Yourself In Someone Else, the unit ripped up the original ideas and started again.
“The album is written for the time that we’re in right now,” says Atkins.“The story we chose to get rid of had this element of grandstanding and too much showmanship but this one is very raw and very personal.”
The “raw and personal” album is set around a tale about love spiralling into the lows of loss. Sprinkled with sultry, sensual tones, it’s as much a subtle nod to Sade, Prince and George Michael as it is to prog rock. Expansive soundscapes swim around while luscious guitars create a thick, hazy twinkle. The record’s centrepiece is the soft, tumbling burst of Voyage, accompanied by a video laced with gorgeous underwater scenes that are very much Glass Ocean’s Guillermo del Toro moment.
“The album’s meant to be a conversation between two different forces,” says Atkins. “There’s an image that inspired me in Finnish… or maybe it was Norwegian… weddings, where they hold a candle while they are getting married and it signifies that, whatever we do, we are subordinate to the light.”
And in such challenging times, Atkins takes a moment to reflect.“I really hope that people can take something from it that’s special for them and to help them go forward as well with the way that the world is at the moment.” HW
“THE ALBUM’S MEANT TO BE A CONVERSATION
BETWEEN TWO DIFFERENT
FORCES.”