Cammie Gilbert-Beverly has one of the most expressive and impressive voices in modern metal. Together with drummer and husband Dobber Beverly, she has steered Houston, Texas’s Oceans of Slumber to further critical acclaim and commercial success with each new release since joining the band in 2014. Firmly entrenched in Houston’s thriving metal scene, Cammie and Dobber are as talented as they are humble, as anyone who has crossed their paths will attest—I ran into them recently at Houston’s Hell’s Heroes festival where they were there as music fans enthusiastically rubbing shoulders with admirers and fellow metal die-hards. Despite the band’s rich potential for crossover success, they have continually refused to abandon their roots, instead balancing their deep yet accessible southern gothic metal with elements of death- and prog-metal, and the occasional reimagined, left-of-center cover song.

The title track serves as a statement of intent as it gracefully twists and turns its way through a virtual cornucopia of ideas, all the while never losing sight of the song. Beginning with fragile yet soulful vocals over clean guitars and subtle synths courtesy of newcomer Chris Kritikos, and a heavy backbeat, the song builds organically into a catchy blast beat ridden call and response chorus that balances Cammie’s vocals with guttural death growls. This all expertly builds into a subtle, spare middle section that eventually sails into more progressive waters. Atmospheric synths highlight a repetitive plaintive chant of “your grace sufficient, made perfect in my weakness” before the band deftly returns to the hopeful chorus – “With hearts unyielding, we will face, not fear the night. Defying the gods, we will find our own light.”

Elsewhere on “I Will Break Your Pride of Will”, piano arpeggios and synth pads ride a marching beat into an understated alternative metal song that balances a taut, restlessly-heavy-beat by Beverly and bassist/vocalist Semir Ozerkan with melodic synths, elastic riffs, and mournful melodies. “Wish”, a mid-tempo, melodic rocker that is perhaps the most straightforward thing here, revels in its sonic efficiency. “8 Prayers”, an unlikely love song, miraculously concatenates the solemn dirge of the verses with death-infused pre-choruses, folky acoustic choruses that find Cammie dueting with a male vocalist, and a haunting bridge. All are made vivid by a modern, ambient but tight mix with high production values.

Stand-out track “Run from the Light” is a skillfully constructed gothic metal tune that doesn’t skimp on atmosphere, catchiness, or progressive adventurousness. A hard-driving verse propels itself headlong into a thrashing, barked pre-chorus before resolving to a catchy AF half-time chorus. Lyrically, the song appears to mine the same territory as the rest of the set, the search for truth in the darkest places of humanity as “we stumble through chaos and strife in search of suns burning the skies.” While the reference seems universal in this instance, given the poignant lyrics to past masterpieces like “The Hanging Tree”, it’s not hard to read the lyrics as a search for spirituality and meaning amidst the religious extremes of the deep South. 

“Don’t Come Back from Hell” like many of the songs here is brimming with cross-over appeal. Gentle strings and clean guitars adorn a 6/8 swing as Cammie turns in a lovely, pleading vocal performance that would certainly make a stay in hell more palatable. The wistfully spare middle section highlights some of the most fragile beautiful singing in the band’s repertoire. As is their tendency, the band eventually muddies the waters with blast beats in the chorus and a gritty death-metal turn in the outro. Similar to touchstone bands like Opeth or Pain of Salvation, Oceans of Slumber approach prog in a way that largely sidesteps flashy, instrumental acrobatics in favor of the sonic storytelling and adventurous spirit of classic progressive rock.

The record closes out with a pair of strange bedfellows in “The Impermanence of Fate” and an unlikely cover of Chris Isaac’s unlikely smash hit “Wicked Game”. The former finds the band blending a wicked gospel of blues-inflected doom-and-gloom with almost lo-fi-black-metal to outlandish effect. The latter is a lovely and bleak cover of the song that James Hetfield cites as influencing his post- ‘…and Justice for All’ career. This dynamic perfectly encapsulates the band’s affinity for extremes, heavy and dulcet, light and dark. A wicked game indeed.

On the sublime ‘Where Gods Fear to Speak’, Oceans of Slumber flex their creative muscles without bowing to any trends or sacrificing their unique vision.