The Ocean Unveil Dreamy New Single and Video, “Oligocene”

After an excruciating seven-week wait following the release of “Jurassic | Cretaceous,” the debut single from The Ocean’s forthcoming album, the band have returned with another single, “Oligocene,” and a music video to go along with it.

The instrumental track was written by drummer Paul Seidel and recorded with synth player Peter Voigtmann on drums. It serves as a transitional track from the busy and heavy first half of the record (Mesozoic) into the more relaxed, spacious and cold ambient vibes prevailing on the second half of the record (Cenozoic). Phanerozoic II: Mesozoic | Cenozoic as a whole serves as the second half of the band’s two-album journey which began in 2018 with Phanerozoic I: Palaeozoic.

The video was shot in the Aragats mountains in Armenia during the band’s “Siberian Traps” tour in the summer of 2019, which brought them to Russia, Kazakhstan, Armenia, Georgia and Japan. Guitarist and band founder Robin Staps offers of the clip:

“We found this place by accident: the dilapidated ruins of a Soviet observatory & research station for cosmic radiation. The building itself looked like a spaceship that had crash-landed up high in the mountains, but there were lots of interesting structures scattered across the landscape: concrete cubes, underground tunnels, rusted machinery, fallen power poles and watchtowers. It all looked like taken straight out of Andrej Tarkovsky’s ‘Stalker’ movie.”

Check out “Oligocene” below, along with the video filmed by band members Loic Rossetti, David Ahfeldt and Robin Staps, and edited and animated by Craig Murray.

Phanerozoic II: Mesozoic | Cenozoic comes out September 25 via Metal Blade and is available for pre-order now in a number of different configurations, including a wooden box set that comes with authentic prehistoric fossils, a 130 page photobook, an engraved slate rock plate, a slipmat and a patch.