Ocean: Ocean (1981)

With this surprisingly sturdy, French-sung hard rock album, which I later learned to be their fourth (and last!), Paris’ Ocean had me jumping up and down with schocked excitement, shouting “Où étais-tu, durant toute ma vie.”

(Not really, I don’t speak French.)

But, as I would soon learn, the group was playing progressive rock as far back as 1974, having poached their moniker from Yes’ Tales from Topographic Oceans LP and debuted with ‘77’s artsy God’s Clown, before getting born again for the ‘80s in denim and leather.

In other words, theirs was a career trajectory not unlike that of Krokus, only a different kind of cheese: French, not Swiss.

Terrible jokes aside, I’ll have you know that 40 years ago, and following a pair of transitional albums -- one of them produced by Andy Scott (Uriah Heep, Pink Floyd, David Bowie) -- Ocean seemed ready to challenge their better-known compatriots in Trust for the French heavy metal crown.

And after following their example by playing some dates with Iron Maiden, the Ocean boys recorded this LP in the U.K. (where the New Wave of British Heavy Metal was still going strong), though I can’t say I remember reading their producer’s name -- Tim Friese-Green -- on my Queen and Talk Talk albums ... not that I owned any of the latter.

In any case, I’ll resist hyping you beyond reason and admit that, as effective and enthusiastic as they were, accomplished head-bangers like “Aristo,” “Dégage” and the slow-stomping “Attention Contrôle” weren’t quite up to the standards of Bernie Bonvoisin’s bunch.

Maybe the excellent “Rock ‘n’ Roll,” for which the band recorded this bare- bones music video. 

Plus, this being 1981 (the year after Back in Black) Ocean had a fair amount of AC/DC in their metal, much like Spain’s Barón Rojo and Slovenia’s Pomaranča (though not as much as either Trust or Krokus), and that meant some hooky head-banging from infectious cuts like “À Force de Gueuler,” “Qu’on me Laisse le Temps“ and “Berceuse.”

Unfortunately, it looks like everything went pear-shaped for Ocean upon their return to Paris, and by the end of the year the quartet was were playing its final gigs, soon to be rudely dropped by Barclay Records amid a corporate absorption into the Polygram conglomerate.

Ocean’s already meager popular awareness outside of their homeland quickly faded as the 1980s rocked on, so that’s why you’ll see even dedicated metal collectors like me writing long-overdue blogs like this one, all of four decades after the band’s demise.

Better late than never, I suppose ...