The Ocean has unveiled the song "Bathyalpelagic Ii: The Wish in Dreams" from their forthcoming studio offering, "Pelagial", a progressive musical journey written, recorded, mixed and to be performed live as a single 53-minute piece of music. Mixed and mastered by Jens Bogren (Opeth, Katatonia, Witchcraft) at Fascination Street Studios in Örebrö, Sweden, "Pelagial" will be released as a double Cd (including a vocal and an instrumental version of the album) on April 29 in Europe and April 30 in North America through Metal Blade Records.

The concept of the album is made evident in its title, "Pelagial". Listeners will be further submersed as they journey with the band, beginning at the surface of the ocean and plunging through all five pelagic depth zones: epipelagic, mesopelagic, bathyalpelagic, abyssopelagic, and hadopelagic. In synch with diminishing light and increasing pressure as one dives or sinks deeper into the ocean, the album begins rather light and progressively gets heavier and slows as the band reaches the unfathomable depths of the hadopelagic zone, characterized by complete darkness and a thousandfold increased pressure as compared to surface level. What is amazing about "Pelagial" is that this is not some detached conceptual idea; this can actually be heard and felt while listening to the album.

Preorders are currently available for a very special acrylic boxset edition of "Pelagial", released through Pelagic Records. These heavy acrylic boxes are available in Cd and vinyl formats and contain the Cd digipak vs. four vinyl records respectively, as well as an extra Dvd with the "Pelagial" movie by Craig Murray, all of which will be "buried" underneath five thick acrylic layers, colored in different hues of blue, each layer reflecting one of the five pelagial depth zones. The layers will be silk-screen printed with additional artwork by Martin Kvamme. 350 out of 500 copies of the limited vinyl box sets and 450 out of 1000 Cd box sets have already been sold in the first five days of starting the preorder.

"Pelagial" track listing:

01. Epipelagic
02. Mesopelagic: The Uncanny
03. Bathyalpelagic I: Impasses
04. Bathyalpelagic Ii: The Wish in Dreams
05. Bathyalpelagic Iii: Disequillibrated
06. Abyssopelagic I: Boundless Vasts
07. Abyssopelagic Ii: Signals of Anxiety
08. Hadopelagic I: Omen of the Deep
09. Hadopelagic Ii: Let Them Believe
10. Demersal: Cognitive Dissonance
11. Benthic: The Origin of Our Wishes