VOLA THE OCEAN
SUPPORT
Prog is a universal language, and it’s hard to think of a recent line-up that demonstrates it more clearly than tonight’s. North London’s 600-capacity rock club The Garage is being graced by a trio of bands that hail from the US, Australia and Denmark respectively. That’s three different continents uniting under one roof in the name of forward-thinking music.
Representing the States are opening act Four Stroke Baron. Despite jerking the curtain, they already have serious prog rock pedigree: 2021 album Classics was mixed by Devin Townsend and 2018’s Planet Silver Screen featured Shining leader Jørgen Munkeby on saxophone. The Townsend connection is especially obvious when the trio take the stage: opener Friday Knight heralds a nearoperatic vocal turn from singerguitarist Kirk Witt. Framing his voice is a mixture of intricate guitar work and primal rock’n’roll. It’s a blend that makes the band both experimental and invigorating, and the audience lose themselves in some good old-fashioned headbanging.
It’s perfect timing for The Garage to start getting limber, since Voyager are going to demand almost an hour of movement from the still-filling venue. The Perthbased quintet are natural showpeople that demand nothing less than full investment. Guitarists Simone Dow and Scott Kay have especially flawless chemistry, jumping in sync at the drop of every beat and, naturally, encouraging the same from their onlookers. They take nothing away from frontman Daniel Estrin and bassist/backing singer Alex Canion, though: their interweaving vocals are the backbone of such prog metal singalongs as Hyperventilating. Estrin steals even more points in the midst of set-closer Ascension, during which he picks up one of Voyager’s LED light tubes and swings it about like a lightsaber.
Prog and power metal are the most plentiful ingredients in Voyager’s anthems, but the Australians make no bones about maintaining their recent Europop tangent either.
They’ve unabashedly pursued the
Eurovision crowd since their 2019 album
Colours In The Sun by upping their synths and electronic ambience to nonsense levels. Although it’s been a controversial swerve, new songs Colours and Brightstar slot flawlessly into the setlist – and you can’t argue with the flashy outfits complementing the gimmick. More white leather and white jeans in heavy prog music, please!
There are no such frills from VOLA, though. These Danes
(and Swede) are a wholehearted prog metal force. The sound of
24 Light-Years heralds the fourpiece’s arrival, gracing The Garage with the sound of last year’s
Witness LP. That third album is by far the band’s most out-there, and they present that eclecticism – warts and all – to their latenight congregation. So, while the aforementioned opening track serenades London with VOLA’s tried and tested USPs – polyrhythmic drumming, hellishly low djent licks and shimmering falsetto singing – These Black Claws has a rapping bridge blast out from the backing track. It’s certainly left-field but doesn’t always work.
“THE FULL DIVERSITY, POWER AND GEOGRAPHY OF PROGRESSIVE METAL’S BEEN FLAUNTED.”
Of all the bands who’ve had to arrange and rearrange tours over the last couple of years, few have been fucked over more than The Ocean. The international prog metal collective were meant to grace our shores in January 2021, promoting Phanerozoic II: Mesozoic | Cenozoic with support from PG.lost, Hypno5e and Svalbard. Then they had to postpone their dates to the summer. Then they had to push them back again. That they’ve finally made it to the UK – now flanked by acts from guitarist Robin Staps’ Pelagic Records – feels nothing short of miraculous.
Greek/Dutch quintet Playgrounded commence the evening with their bleak progressive rock. Well, tonight they’re a quartet: travel troubles have caused drummer Giorgos Pouliasis to miss the gig and get replaced by a laptop. Pouliasis and bassist Odysseas Zafeiriou are this bunch’s driving force, their wonky rhythm work often being the only music played beneath twin-vocalist melodies. Although Playgrounded perform well given the circumstances, there’s clearly a chest-rumbling oomph missing from their 40 minutes.
After LLNN pummel 229 into powder with their powerful post-metal, The Ocean – despite their members hailing from Germany and Switzerland – seize the stage to the kind of rapturous response usually reserved for homecomings. The smoke machines work tirelessly from the second the intro tape starts, reducing the six-piece to silhouettes in fog. It’s a smokescreen that lets their light show steal the entire night, each flash bursting brightly through the white. The visual splendour is at its best during Jurassic/Cretaceous. During the 13-minute behemoth, each stabbing guitar chord gets paired with a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it flare. The end result is like watching musicians play through a zoetrope.
The band almost sound as good as they look. From opener Triassic onwards, the setlist is progressive metal perfection, with behemoth Silurian: Age Of Sea Scorpions employing post-rock crescendos to curate hugely cathartic payoffs. Bathyalpelagic I and II demonstrate not only The Ocean’s melodic sensibilities, but also their most conceptual songwriting to date, lifted from a record themed around diving deeper and deeper into the sea. The apex, though, is Permian: The Great Dying. The Phanerozoic I finale proves its status as a fan favourite, with Loïc Rosetti’s croons and roars getting returned at full force by a rabid crowd.
Speaking of Rossetti, the frontman is on a tear tonight. He’s charismatic and, vocally, can do it all. It’s just a shame that he’s insultingly low in the mix. It’s the one chink in the armour of what’s otherwise been one of prog’s finest gigs this year.