Ocean have taken the sludge genre to extreme forms and have injected a heavy dose of doom in their sound. As you might expect Pantheon Of The Lesser starts off with quite a bit of feedback, making the listener slightly uneasy and wary of what is to come. Ocean may be a very heavy band (quite a statement), but they remain however interesting enough in the riff department. They break the earth-shattering heaviness with a strangely melodious approach that makes the music at least a bit pleasant to the ears and somewhat accessible. There's no doubt that Pantheon Of The Lesser is all about the atmosphere that the heaviness manages to create and puts the listener into a hypnotic state where repetition and well....heaviness form the main ingredients. This repetition gives the album a very ritualistic setting and to add to that the guys of Ocean have chosen to include Bloody Panda vocalist Yoshiko Ohara who also adds to the entire mystical religious feel. The percussion is as to be expected minimalistic and simple. At certain times you will get the impression that the drummer speeds up a tiny bit, but that will only last a couple of seconds. Then it's back to bashing your head into a bloody pulp. At certain times the massive distortion will make way for a cleanly played melody, providing for a nice variety and relieving the listener for a short while from the gutwrenching heavy guitars. Ocean manage to not exaggerate with the feedback during the entire playtime and tries to keep it to a tasteful minimum and instead focusses on perfecting the couple of riffs that are present here. As previously stated, don't expect a rifffest or just another headbang session, no, this is a record that should be played when you have the time to fully emerge yourself into a particular sound and atmosphere. Only then will Pantheon Of The Lesser fully reveal itself to you and prove what it's capable of.
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