Band:	Oceans Of Slumber
Album:	Winter
Style:	Progressive metal, Extreme progressive metal
Release date:	March 2016

01. Winter
02. Devout
03. Night In White Satin [The Moody Blues cover]
04. Lullaby
05. Laid To Rest
06. Suffer The Last Bridge
07. Good Life
08. Sunlight
09. Turpentine
10. Apologue
11. How Tall The Trees
12. ...This Road
13. Grace

What I said in my Staff Pick about Oceans Of Slumber's Winter still stands true. I still feel like a ton of bricks has fallen on me. The love for this album is still mainly about one key element, though - the voice of Cammie Gilbert that elevates this doom-infused prog metal to a completely different level of perception for me.

I was utterly and irrevocably in love with Cammie's voice when, to my surprise, the third track in I heard the cover of The Moody Blues's "Nights in White Satin." A beautiful song to begin with, the band have managed to add their own heavy touch to it that complements the original while setting it apart at the same time. Cammie's emotional vocals literally reach to the bottom of the soul, while the underlying music adds an additional layer of longing, inasmuch as it's possible for this song.

What I love about the arrangement of the songs is that music and vocals often go along their own distinct paths. This particular amalgamation is interesting in that vocal lines often smooth over the underlying instrumental complexities, which works on two levels at once - capturing attention with different leads at the same time as well as actually smoothing over where music could have lent more support to the vocals.

I'm totally in love with this album, but putting aside my own sentiments towards it, Winter is a somewhat weird entity. It's evident that a lot of compositional thought has gone into it - the ever-changing passages and intricate instrumentational details speak volumes of it. However, there are moments when I feel it somewhat lacks direction and compositional finesse and focus, thus appearing erratic or disjoint.

I mean, Cammie is brilliant on vocals. She can sing just about anything. However, as most of the album was probably written and tracked before Cammie came into the band, not every aspect of the extreme prog metal nature that the band have at their back works flawlessly in present combination. In this regard the Blue covers EP released last summer is far better on the mark. The more the music supports her vocals, the better it will sound. Which is not to say the band should lay off the extremes, just that a little more compositional thought is needed.

This album is great. It really is. But you don't have to take my word for it as I'm looking at it through rose-tinted glasses and am very partial to the soulful vocals that can bring goosebumps to my skin. However, I suggest you do let Cammie's vocals work their charm. That's worth your time, if nothing else is.