(No Serge, you're not turning this into a rant about how moronic the pop music industry has become, go on, write the damn review.)
Sorry about that. I digressed for a little bit. That happens sometimes, mostly when a band comes up with something quite unexpected. An Ocean Of Void did just that. This Bordeaux, France based band somehow managed to bring acts like Pink Floyd, Katatonia, Opeth and Porcupine Tree into the post-metal scene. So perhaps the best way to describe this album is this: Cult Of Luna covering 'Wish You Were Here' by Pink Floyd. Awesome or pliers on pigs?
Damn awesome.
I'm not familiar with the band so I don't really know where they came from, musically that is. However, I have to pay my utmost respect to the quality of this music. I've often been pleasantly surprised by post-metal acts but none of them ever succeeded in successfully adding influences from Pink Floyd, My Dying Bride and Russian Circles to decent song writing skills. Dreamy atmospheric passages alternate with brutally distorted outbursts, much to my delight.
When I listened to this album for the first time, the intro raised my interest, 'Enigma' managed to both surprise me in a good way and frown a little and 'Silent Storm' started to convince me. By the time that I was halfway through 'Resonance' I was thinking 'To hell with The Ocean, it's time for An Ocean Of Void takes over the scepter in the post-metal world'. By then, I also realized my earlier mentioned references didn't even cut it.
There's a lot more to it than elements from the previously mentioned bands (except Adèle of course). These guys have been inhaling loads of musical genres, from atmospheric rock, over progressive metal and doom to jazz and death metal. Needless to say that all these influences make 'The Great Escape' an immensely varied album and a damn immersive one too. Even vocals range from clean chants to fierce death growls, all of course perfectly fitting in with the music at that time.
So yes, the is an amazing album, loaded with all the best from some of the best musical genres ever invented. I can only recommend checking it out and I hope you will be as surprised as I was when I suddenly found myself headbanging to some parts of 'Behind Red Clouds'. Pink Floyd never made me do that and they're one of my favorite bands of all time.
Serge