Berlin atmospheric post metal visionaries The Ocean will release their twelfth studio album, Solaris, on September 25 via Pelagic Records. Solaris follows 2023’s Holocene and marks the beginning of a new chapter for the band, introducing an expanded international lineup while returning to the cinematic, crushing sound that made albums like Pelagial and Phanerozoic modern progressive metal landmarks.
Following from Light Pollution, & Belligerence the band have unveiled the album’s third monumental single, Ultima Esperanza. Ultima Esperanza (Spanish for “last hope”) is the first half of the 20-minute closing piece of Solaris. and is also the name of the southernmost province on the South American continent, named after the inlet known as Última Esperanza Sound. The inlet was given its name by Spanish navigator Juan Ladrillero in 1557, who hoped it would offer a passage to the Strait of Magellan. Instead, it leads to a glacier — and ultimately, a dead end.
The band comments: “Ultima Esperanza explores the intrinsically human notion of hope as the driving force behind all explorative endeavours, and loss thereof. It is a reflection on mental resilience, tracing the different stages of losing hope and the mind’s remarkable tendency to keep projecting it even onto the most dire realities, as an instinctive means of survival.”
