On the heels of their massive, sprawling Permian, The Ocean Collective is unleashing another piece of their highly anticipated upcoming album: "Devonian: Nascent" makes its debut today. Check it out below.

Proving again why they are one of the most respected groups in the contemporary prog-metal world, "Devonian" takes a completely different turn than their previous single, in part due to the vocals of Jonas Renkse, of Swedish metal giants Katatonia. The collaboration has long been in the making, explains Renkse:

"Robin approached me for a guest spot already in 2005, and I really wanted to be part, but at that time we were in the studio ourselves recording The Great Cold Distance, so I felt I had too much on my mind. We have met after that and talked a little about doing something and now it finally happened. 'Devonian: Nascent' became a mammoth track without ever losing its initial melancholy."

Adds The Ocean Collective mastermind, Robin Staps: "We sent Jonas the track, and what we got back as a 'demo' was almost identical with what ended up as the final version on the record. Jonas has a perfect and intuitive understanding of our music, there was no need to explain anything. He came up with his own vocal parts and lyrics, and everything just fit perfectly from the start. Katatonia's The Great Cold Distance was an important album for me and for The Ocean, it was one of the first albums where heavy, low-tuned guitars and clean vocals next to one another were actually working out for me, personally. It was an album that made me reconsider my opinion about clean vocals in metal, and that forged my own desire to look for a vocalist for The Ocean who could also deliver cleans."

The band recently released a first vlog in support of the new album. Watch below:

The Ocean marks their rebirth with "Permian," a nine-minute epic about The Great Dying. Explains guitarist and primary songwriter Robin Staps, "About 90% of all life on Earth was wiped out during this mass extinction event at the end of the Permian period, 250 million years ago. The most probable scenario is that The Great Dying was caused by increased volcanic activity inducing a global warming of about five degrees, which led to widespread ocean anoxia and the release of large amounts of methane gas from shallow seabeds into the atmosphere. This fast release of methane, a greenhouse gas, caused even further warming."

All of this occurred long before humanity appeared on the map, yet the effects of this global warming cannot be ignored. Says Robin, "There is no reason to assume that the results of the current human-caused warming would not be, at best, similarly devastating. The same increase in global temperatures that happened over the course of at least 150,000 years at the end of the Permian is likely to happen in just a few hundred years now. Looking at the five mass extinction events during the Phanerozoic eon reminds us that even without human impact, Earth has the power and potential to wipe out humanity in its entirety, at any given moment in time."

Ebbs and flows of proggy melodies, crushing guitars, swelling strings and powerful vocals match the heavy lyrical themes The Ocean Collective has made its signature. Phanerozoic I is now available for preorder, along with meticulously designed merch bundles, something for which they've become known, and will be released November 2nd via Metal Blade Records (CD / digital) and the band's own Pelagic Records (vinyl). Pre-order at Metal Blade Records.

Tracklisting:

“The Cambrian Explosion”
“Cambrian II: Eternal Recurrence”
“Ordovicium: The Glaciation Of Gondwana”
“Silurian: Age Of Sea Scorpions”
“Devonian: Nascent”
“The Carboniferous Rainforest Collapse”
“Permian: The Great Dying”

“Permian: The Great Dying”: