Review by Raphaël on January 11, 2025.

Striking, cinematic, grandiose, empowering, sorrowful, soulful, vulnerable, emotive. Not enough words exist to describe Cammie Gilbert's voice. It's a voice you feel, deep within your soul. In 2022, on Starlight And Ash, they abandoned all traces of their extreme metal side and honestly, it passed like a knife through warm butter. Cammie has such a commending voice and presence; I would follow her anywhere. Just two years later, I was pleasantly surprised to hear their extreme side is back and better than ever.

The range of extreme sounds they blend together are crushing doom with touches of death metal here and there and a gothic atmosphere enveloping everything with a dark and mysterious mist. These extreme sounds are added on the progressive metal skeleton with everything from southern soul to prog rock, classical, heavy metal, gothic rock, all sounding completely coherent. Even the Chris Isaak cover that ends the album sounds completely at home. I am in complete awe before this piece of art, this rich tapestry of sounds, pulling from all corners of music, kept together by incredible songwriting, musicianship and most importantly, Cammie's generational voice.

The album starts slowly with moody guitars and atmospheric cymbal work that quickly evolves into heavy doom metal, hinting that their more extreme side is back. After a quick tempo increase, Cammie's cleans get even more epic, then, out of the depths of hell itself, comes out a deep, guttural and savage death growl! Fitting that the first growled line is: "Dante's inferno deep and wide". But there's something that doesn't sound quite the same. After reading a bit I was pleasantly surprised to see that Cammie does all the growls herself! Follows a wide range of crushingly heavy sections, softer more emotive moments all wrapped up in a mysterious atmosphere. Cammie might be the star but the other guys are not to be ignored either. Accompanying his wife's magistral voice with his powerful and precise drum play is Dobber Beverly. He complements Cammie's energy like they are in perfect synchronicity, he can go as soft and delicate as her voice but can switch in an instant with savage blast beats and then slow down for that crushing doom section. It must be really cool to see them live, a married couple in perfect synergy, creating unique and powerful music together. Add interesting riffs, great bass lines and a multitude of other arrangements and instrumentation, pianos, synths and classical strings, for a rich musical experience. Lyrically, it's another coup de maître! Themes of love, loss and struggles are beautifully painted with words, evoking relatable hardships of life but with a hopeful and positive approach. Just take this segment of the song 'Don't Come Back from Hell Empty Handed': "So, if you're crawling through hell, Where those fires burn bright, Make sure to grasp the flames, And fight to bring back the light, The fires may sear, the journey might scar, But the spirit, unbroken, can travel so far". You can always gain experience with every hardship you traverse. Lyrics as good as this, gives even more authenticity to music that is already overflowing with it.

This album is a remarkable work, every single song is unique, all with their own twists and turns, making the 57 min runtime a journey full of surprises and beauty. 2024 was such a great year for prog!

Rating: 9.5 out of 10

Review by Jeger on August 24, 2024.

Oceans Of Slumber - a contemporary dark cinematic metal collective out of Houston, Texas, USA - home of big oil, big trucks, and, well, everything big. So, it's only natural for the music to be larger-than-life as well. With Oceans Of Slumber, the musical parallels between themselves and other bands are divided by a mile, and not even the mightiest of epic metal groups can hold a candle to their talent: epic compositions, striking audiovisual, and musicianship on a world-class scale. And vocalist Cammie Beverly? Forget about it… One of the very best singers within the realm of epic metal whose contributions rank her right up there with the likes of Floor Jansen, Tarja Turunen, and Simone Simons as some of the world's very best vocalists. Every band member’s talents shine like the way streetlights shimmer down the side of a sexy new black Cadillac in motion, but that hardly means anything if the music fails to captivate. Realistically speaking, talent goes only so far…

Oceans Of Slumber’s discography is one that stylistically spans just about every influence you can think of from death metal to prog, and every album is designed to take the audience off guard, as each one takes on varying forms: heavy as fuck over here and super-melodic over there, but always a grande affair. On September 13, 2024 Oceans Of Slumber released their Season of Mist debut, Where Gods Fear To Speak. Just look at the fucking cover art! And take in the souped-up cinematic production quality as you experience the majesty of 'Run From The Light' or 'Don't Come Back From Hell Empty Handed'. Both sound like they belong in some kind of Avatar-like, otherworldly fantasy epic, but for me, the ride is already over. This is some crudely-bolted-together music, like duct-taping a bunch of big screen TVs together that all have different movies on and it's like you don't know which one to actually watch. Each track is like four or five tracks packed into one - a dark cinematic salad of sorts…

There's no point in even trying to break any other tracks down because it's all such a mess. Just imagine walking into a destroyed museum or that Cadillac getting T-boned at the intersection. You don’t have to incorporate every great idea you think of into an album, otherwise, it's like when Homer Simpson designed a car, remember that? What we have here is a group of kids slapping a bunch of stickers on that car, as if it didn't already look ridiculous. Enthusiasts with an ear for what's pure, what's balanced or what's not just Masturbation should run like hell. Yeah, there's some death, some black, some prog and some really epic (there's that word again) shit going down here, but it's all so convoluted. Who would listen to this thing again? People who like movies like Avatar maybe…

I just watched an album for the first time! Looked great, but the soundtrack could've been much better. With Where Gods Fear To Speak, Oceans Of Slumber show the world how talented they are, and that statement is heard loud and clear, but maybe it's time for a little something called fundamentals, because without those, the music is just not appealing to anyone except for maybe yourself. A musical accomplishment to be both proud and ashamed of is Where Gods Fear To Speak - a double-edged sword of an album - a real catch 22 as they say. Perhaps I'm missing the whole point, and I'm okay with that because my ears hurt…

Rating: 5 out of 10