A surreal journey begins on …And Oceans’ lead single ‘Inertiae’

…and Oceans has persistently defied musical confines, marrying the audacious essence of symphonic black metal with avant-garde elements. Through a remarkable 30-year trajectory, they have maintained an insatiable thirst for reinvention. The release of “Inertiae” is an embodiment of their relentless evolution, a heady fusion of symphonic mastery and kinetic industrial trance-dance beats.

Drawing from their rich history, this track lays bare the duality of light and dark, striking a balance that is synonymous with their iconic sound. The band’s mesmerizing blend captures the cosmic interplay between chaos and order, refined to unruly perfection by the mixing and mastering of Tore Stjerna at Necromorbus Studio. As the song unfolds, Mathias Lillmåns‘ potent vocals dance intricately with the labyrinthine rhythms crafted by Timo Kontio and Antti Simonen, promising an expansive auditory expedition.

“Inertiae, the bringer of paralysis, the guardian of my sleep.” reflects Mathias. “The one that opens my eyes, keeps my flesh in stasis and my mind barely touching the surface. This track is a dialog, like a servant addressing his master, between me and the bane of my slumber.”

Imagine being pulled through a vortex, the edges of reality fraying as you’re whisked away to realms of myth and memory. Inertiae serves as a prelude to the labyrinthine odyssey that is The Regeneration Itinerary. It is an album that weaves together their storied past and audacious future, touching upon the celestial and the corporeal, the ethereal and the visceral. Each track is a portal to another facet of existence. From the spectral Förnyelse I Tre Akter to the ruthless pulse of The Fire in Which We Burn, the album’s narrative is at once both timeless and immediate.

The Regeneration Itinerary is a celestial compass guiding listeners through the prognostications of time and the shadows of consciousness. Recorded at SoundSpiral Audio by Juho Räihä, it is a tour de force that promises to redefine …and Oceans, while pushing the boundaries of symphonic black metal to uncharted territories.

Chaos chameleons. Nocturnal shapeshifters. The skyward trajectory of idiosyncratic Finnish extremists …and Oceans has been serpentine and sublime.

Since rising in 1995 from the ashes of death metal outfit Festerday, the group’s esoteric take on extreme music has seem them draw on a gamut on contrasting elements, ranging from black and death metal to classical, industrial and EBM, forever questing through various line-up changes, defying expectations while remaining wholly true to themselves.

“We’ve never been tied to one particular genre,” explains founding member, guitarist Timo Kontio. “As a band, we are driven to explore, to traverse unfamiliar landscapes, while always preserving our core sound. It’s about striking a balance. There’s the constant need in this band for renewal and ambition, but never at a cost to our identity.”

The group’s earliest albums, The Dynamic Gallery of Thoughts (1998) and The Symmetry of I: The Circle of O (1999), combined bombastic synth-driven salvos, blisteringly raw guitars, piercing banshee shrieks and ornate gothic arrangements in eviscerating wrath-fuelled blasts, while several celestial passages and near-dungeon synth segues already demonstrated the band’s need to mix things up.

A more seismic shift came in the mutant forms of A.M.G.O.D. (2001) and Cypher (2002), which saw …and Oceans transmogrify into a crushing cybernetic colossus, bulldozing into dystopian anti-futures with batteries of scalding techno beats and chugging palm-muted malevolence.

Accompanied by frontman Kena Strömsholm’s android syntax, the band’s dark heart now pumped corrosive hydraulic fluids around digital membranes, its symphonic black metal supercharged by martial industrial rhythms and infectious melo-death grooves.

The metamorphosis intensified with an interim rebrand as …and Oceans disbanded and its members reassembled under the name Havoc Unit in 2005, a vehicle for further mechanised contagions and noise worship, issuing their sole full-length, h.IV+ (Hoarse Industrial Viremia), in 2008.

But throughout these detours the mournful essence of …and Oceans’ singular universe endured, gathered together by a lamenting thread, a dolefulness unique to the Finnish scene, borne emphatically in the impassioned guitars of Kontio and his axe-wielding brother-in-arms, Teemu Saari. “Melancholia is everywhere, it’s in all the music that I make, especially my lead work,” elaborates Kontio. “It’s a key factor, distinctive to the whole …and Oceans catalogue.”

The band’s insatiable thirst for reinvention would subsequently find sustenance in its 90s roots, recasting the symphonic pomp of the past in the ardent furnace of experience and experimentation. Reconvening under the …and Oceans banner in 2017, the resulting brace of albums – Cosmic World Mother (2020) and As in Gardens, So in Tombs (2023) – redefined the group once more with ornate epics brimful of deliciously grim Karelian melodies and the chimerical atmospheres of keyboardist Antti Simonen, while new vocalist Mathias Lillmåns, replacing the departing Strömsholm, reinforced ties to black metal’s second wave with his devastatingly toxic rasp.

Now, 30 years on from their auspicious birth, …and Oceans have unveiled their most accomplished statement yet. A flamboyant distillation of the group’s grand nocturnal art, The Regeneration Itinerary assimilates all their hopes, dreams and influences into an uncompromising document of ravenous intent, with inebriating stylistic hybrids such as ‘Inertiae’ and ‘The Form and the Formless’ seamlessly fusing the heady onrush of symphonic black metal to the bludgeoning pulse of Simonen’s trance-dance hypnosis.

“The new album can be seen as a synthesis of our entire back catalogue,” suggests Lillmåns. “But there are new levels of extremity, too, ones that we’ve never reached before. These songs simply demanded harsher vocals. The riffs commanded it, and who am I to disobey?”

“This is our most experimental album since our comeback,” states Kontio. “It might be considered a continuation of the music we made in the 90s, but the sound has ripened and developed as our individual tastes have broadened, our inspirations subconsciously feeding into the band’s sound, necessitating change. From the very start, this band has encouraged progression and growth.”

Representing an intrepid summation of …and Oceans’ extraordinary journey, their continuing evolution, The Regeneration Itinerary locates the band’s dramatic thaumaturgical blends within a conceptual framework of opposites (and opposition).

“The Regeneration Itinerary explores the interplay between darkness and light, chaos and order, spiritual and material realms, with each song embodying an experience for the mind and body, navigating a passage to the present moment,” explains Lillmåns.

“The album works like a guide,” he continues. “Teaching us that not everything can be defined as simply being ‘good’ or ‘bad’, ‘light’ or ‘dark’, ‘copper’ or mercury’, underscoring the perpetual dance of dualities in the human experience.”

Line-up:
Mathias Lillmåns – Vocals
Teemu Saari – Guitar
Timo Kontio – Guitar
Pyry Hanski – Bass
Antti Simonen – Keyboards
Kauko Kuusisalo – Drums