ISIS Oceanic: Sad, Vast, and Weirdly Uplifting

Oceanic is the second full-length album from American post-metal band ISIS, released in 2002 and widely seen as a turning point in their sound and in the development of the post-metal genre. It’s not your typical metal record: long, immersive tracks blend heavy, slow-building riffs with ambient textures and moments of quiet, atmospheric reflection, dragging you along like waves in a vast, shifting sea. The album is also a concept piece, exploring themes of love, loss, and emotional weight through expansive instrumental passages and sparse vocals. While it demands patience and attention from listeners, Oceanic rewards those who enjoy music that’s as much about mood and atmosphere as it is about riff intensity—a fitting pick for anyone curious about the deeper, more contemplative side of heavy music.

Review

When I decided to revisit this classic album, I didn’t realize just how much of an impact it would still have on me. Oceanic is a striking mix of brutality—not just musically, but lyrically too, with dark themes of suicide and isolation—balanced with epic, spiraling instrumentals. The album is also water-themed, and it pulls that off so well that I genuinely feel like I’m floating alone in the ocean. Overall, it’s an incredibly versatile and powerful album.

Oceanic is a concept album that tells a dark, emotional narrative: a man’s journey through love, betrayal (he discovers his new love has been in a long-term incestuous relationship with her brother), and ultimately, suicide by drowning. Water is the central theme throughout the album, tying the story and the music together in a haunting, immersive way.

There are nine tracks on the albums:

1. The Beginning And The End
2. The Other
3. False Light
4. Carry
5. (Untitled)
6. Maritime
7. Weight
8. From Sinking
9. Hym

Even with its melodic moments, this album is tough to listen to. Not because it’s crushingly heavy—there’s plenty of Black and Death metal that’s heavier—but because the instruments are deliberately dissonant, twisting and clashing in ways that keep you on edge. The vocals don’t help either; they’re off-kilter and unpredictable, like the singer is intentionally unsettled. By the end, you feel like you’ve been dragged through a beautiful, chaotic storm of sound.

The Beginning And The End

This song opens with a groove and tone that immediately draws you in. Once the lyrics start, you can almost feel a storm brewing, with ocean winds whipping around you as you teeter on the edge of a platform, staring down into the watery abyss. Soon, the music calms, and the guitars ebb and flow in a way that deepens that oceanic vibe, making you feel like you’re truly adrift in the waves.

In the middle of the song, a female voice emerges, adding a surprising tenderness to the abrasive guitars. Her vocals are deliberately muffled, drawing you in even further as the guitars gain momentum. Then, around the 4:57 mark, everything erupts into a powerful crescendo that carries you straight to the song’s dramatic conclusion.

The last two lines of the song hit me harder than anything else:

This is what he’d always known.
The promise of something greater beyond the water’s final horizon.

For me, long before I knew the story behind this album, this song always felt like it was about suicide. When I first heard it, I didn’t know the lyrics—I just pieced together the meaning from the music itself. Because of my own fascination with the subject, it still feels like their best song, not just on this album, but across their entire discography.

The Other

This song introduces the brother in the story, “The Other.” It begins slow and brooding, setting a tense atmosphere. Around the 1:11 mark, the guitars layer in more melody over the initial bassline, building the emotional weight. Then come some truly harrowing vocal screams, making you feel the raw despair of the man as he discovers what the woman he had begun to build his new world around has been doing.

This song is pure dissonance—hardly any melody, just raw, guttural sound. The track runs about 7:14, and it isn’t until around the 4:20 mark that I feel like I can really start to enjoy it 😅. It’s not that the beginning is bad—it’s more of a mood piece, setting the stage and building tension until the music finally hits that point where you can nod your head, lose yourself, and really rock out. I feel like most of ISIS’ music is like that. If you can’t ride the wave (no pun intended) of tension, and prefer more straight-forward metal, then this album might not be for you.

As far as lyrics are concerned, the following says more than I could about the woman’s relationship with her brother:

Twisted roots kept warm

The song closes with a vocal crescendo, as Aaron Turner screams “ready for the death” with a raw intensity that’s rare to hear these days. It’s the perfect way to wrap up the track. While the first half of the song isn’t exactly “head-banging” material, the ending makes me want to hit play again. As I mentioned before, this album is all about mood and atmosphere—you’re not here to rock out; you’re here to be carried by the vibe.

False Light

This song dives into the deception at the heart of the relationship. The man once saw the woman as some kind of holy figure, a savior to rescue him from his own existence—but now he realizes she’s a fraud, far from what he believed her to be. The lyrics are full of quotable moments, so instead of picking just one, I’ll group a few of my favorites together…

Porcelain grin is cracking.
Drown and the first real breath takes hold.
Washed in a chill so peaceful, sink further.
Discover bliss and serenity in drowning.

Musically, this is the heaviest track on the album. It kicks off with screaming vocals and intense guitar riffs, backed by powerful, epic drums that drive the energy forward. It isn’t until the 3:00 mark that we get a brief reprieve, shifting into a slow, melodic instrumental section that carries you away on a wave of bliss—lasting exactly three minutes. Once you’re fully relaxed, the riffs return, launching us into a brutally progressive ending where descending, almost chromatic chord changes add even more weight and intensity.

Carry

This song symbolizes a final surrender and escape from emotional emptiness. He is literally carried away by the water. The lyrics capture a moment of enlightenment he’s long been searching for:

He sees like he never sees before.
He is light in water.

For the longest time, this song was actually my favorite. The first half is an instrumental masterclass, building tension and heaviness that perfectly convey the emotions behind the lyrics. The soft guitar melodies—much like the opening track—evoke a real sense of floating on the ocean. This is one of the few albums where the music so accurately captures its theme that I can almost smell the salty air and feel myself swaying with the waves. The composition is incredible.

Around the 4:00 mark, the guitars kick into overdrive, carrying us through the lyrical content to the song’s conclusion. The riff change at 5:34 introduces a groove that makes me want to nod my head, just as the drums return, making me feel the music throughout my whole body. And the screams at the end—”He is light, in water”—give me goosebumps every time. Simply amazing.

Untitled

This instrumental track is deeply ambient, filled with gurgling sounds, bubbles, and what almost resemble electronic whale calls. It has a very alien, otherworldly tone, and I imagine it represents the transition he goes through—as suggested in “Carry”, he’s letting the ocean take him away.

Maritime

This is another instrumental track, but it leans more on traditional elements—bass, guitars, and drums. It has a gentle ebb and flow that helps settle the listener, setting the stage perfectly before the next track pulls us into an even deeper journey.

Weight

This is mostly an instrumental track as well. From the story’s perspective—though I might be reading into it—it feels like an extension of the man’s transition from life to death, not physically yet, but as a kind of mental acceptance. You can feel the weight of the water pulling him toward the ocean floor, yet paradoxically, the burden of existence seems to lift. Despite the dark context, the track is surprisingly uplifting.

A day, it changes everything.

The longest track on the album, clocking in at around 11 minutes, doesn’t introduce distortion until about the 6:00 mark. From there, it builds to a powerful crescendo before gently dropping back down, only to rise again, layered with beautiful, eerie vocals softly echoing in the background. The effect is hauntingly otherworldly, pulling the listener into an almost alien soundscape.

From Sinking

At this point in the story, the man has made his decision to end his life, choosing to drown in the ocean and escape his torment. Lyrically, it’s bleak—as you might expect—full of isolation and loneliness.

In this place he always knew he’d wake alone.
Like liquid was the sadness.
Until into the light he stepped.
From sinking sands he stepped into lights embrace.

Musically, the song starts heavy, but it’s not the fast-paced aggression of earlier tracks. It trundles along like a behemoth wading through sludge. Around the 2:00 mark, it softens into a brief, gentle instrumental section before returning to aggressive guitars, drums, and vocals. This back-and-forth continues a few times, building tension, until a riff change around 4:20 signals the final stretch. Even then, the music dips into softer passages before closing with brutal vocals and slamming drums, leaving a powerful, haunting impression.

Hym

The closing track serves as an abstract portrayal of the suicide itself—crushing and airless in tone. It drags the listener through the final moments of drowning, where panic slowly erodes into surrender, and the man ultimately arrives at a grim, unsettling sense of peace and distorted “fulfillment” in death.

The thirst came on.
And it came on in waves.
Blank memory washed away.
Swallowed whole through eyes and teeth.

This track once again starts slow and heavy, this time with bellowing vocals instead of outright screams. The tension builds before the music drops away, revealing a crushingly melodic riff around the 2:28 mark that instantly makes me want to bang my head. From there, things slow down again with more weighty riffs and almost tribal-style drumming.

The vocals throughout these sections shift into high-pitched, raw, and brutal screams, before the song transitions into another calm, water-inspired instrumental passage. That section slowly builds and builds until distortion returns, and the track grinds its way through the final moments of the album, bringing everything to a heavy, immersive close.

Verdict

Oceanic is not just an album—it’s a voyage. ISIS crafted a work that demands patience, attention, and emotional engagement, but the rewards are profound. From the stormy intensity of The Beginning And The End to the bleak surrender of Hym, every track carries you deeper into a meticulously constructed world of sound and narrative. Heavy yet melodic, brutal yet tender, the album balances dissonance and atmosphere in a way few records can.

Its concept—a journey through love, betrayal, and ultimate surrender—intertwines seamlessly with its music, making the listener feel both the weight of despair and the eerie, almost meditative beauty of its watery motifs. Instrumental passages wash over you like waves, while vocals punctuate the emotional highs and lows with raw, unpredictable force.

For those willing to embrace its depth, Oceanic is immersive, transformative, and hauntingly beautiful—a cornerstone of post-metal that continues to resonate over two decades after its release. It’s an album that doesn’t just get played; it gets lived.