Cypher

Amongst all the Finnish bands, …And Oceans is without doubt, the most atypical one. Starting out as a black metal outfit, they have released two albums on Seasons of Mist, The Dynamic Gallery Of Thoughts in 1998 and The Symmetry Of I, The Circle Of O in 1999. This new one, Cypher, is their second release for Century Media after A.M.G.O.D. (which stands for Allotropic / Metamorphic - Genesis Of Dimorphism) in 2001. The peculiarity of this band is that the members change their name on every release. One could say …And Oceans has walked the same path as Samael for example since, on their last two releases, they have changed their musical style into some kind of industrial, electronic black metal carried by futuristic keyboard sounds. This new album is a demonstration of a band in progress. However I don't think this new album, as well as their previous album A.M.G.O.D., has the impressive quality that their second album The Dynamic Gallery Of Thoughts had. ...And Oceans is a band that is not afraid to experiment and they have no restrictions or limitations, but sometimes the experimentation is going a little too far. Their tight and compact black metal should be free of all those techno influences, especially on the songs Voyage and Aphid and they actually weaken these songs for me. As well, there are some tracks, such as Catharsis and Debris that don't fit the overall quality of the album. This album is reserved to those who are really open-minded towards techno music and other stuff like that. Besides, one has to be in the mood to listen to this kind of music. Sometimes I just can't stand it and sometimes I just love it. But anyway, an album that is really hard to quote.