Some bands crumble under the weight of a single lineup change. The Ocean lost two-thirds of theirs between 2022 and 2025 — and somehow came back with the boldest record of their 25-year run.

On September 25, 2026, the German post-metal collective will release “Solaris” via Pelagic Records, a near-70-minute odyssey inspired by Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1972 sci-fi masterpiece of the same name. It’s the band’s 12th studio album, and the first to feature a substantially reimagined lineup built around founding guitarist, songwriter and lyricist Robin Staps, longtime bassist Mattias Hägerstrand, and new drummer Jordi Farré (Crippled Black Phoenix). Joining them are guitarists Emmanuel Jessua (Hypno5e) and Marco Gennaro, plus new vocalists Enrico Tiberi and Lane Shi (Elizabeth Colour Wheel, Otay:Onii), who step in for longtime frontman Loïc Rossetti. Tangerine Dream’s Thorsten Quaeschning contributes modular synths, and Jens Bogren — who previously mixed “Pelagial” and both “Phanerozoic” records — returns to mix and master.

The first taste of “Solaris” is “Light Pollution,” a track that opens with familiar synth textures nodding to 2023’s “Holocene” before drifting into something stranger and more expansive. It builds into a towering finale of orchestral grandeur, subdued rhythmic complexity, and the kind of suffocating heaviness that has always been the band’s signature. New vocalist Enrico Tiberi delivers the opening line — “Orbital motion or particles and grains of sand / is there any meaning in these patterns” — a lyric that plays on the dual meaning of orbital motion: both the trajectory of celestial bodies and the elliptical path of water particles as waves pass through, transferring energy without ever moving forward.

Watch the “Light Pollution” video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFAc9-6-LSg

That tension between motion and stagnation is the philosophical heart of the song. “We’ve witnessed several communication revolutions throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, but have we actually become any better at communicating?” Staps asks. “Has there really been forward movement, or has the motion been orbital — have we merely been treading water? Light pollution symbolizes the transparency of the postmodern age, permeating everything and everyone. Everything is constantly visible; we’ve lost the darkness to hide in, and with the relentless glare of communication, we’ve also lost our privacy.”

The accompanying video was directed by filmmaker Craig Murray (Mogwai, Converge), who built a narrative arc around the arrival of new vocalists Tiberi and Shi. Murray’s obsessive attention to costume, props and set design pushes the visual into full cinematic territory. “Craig is a one-man army,” says Staps. “Every detail of the film exists in his head before he starts to shoot, he’s got hand-drawn sketches of every single scene. He gets up at 6:30 to make moulds, shoot and direct, and he’s still up at 2am glueing tentacles or smearing slime and sand over faces. He’s a machine.”

“Solaris” Tracklist:
1. “52°30’11” N, 13°26’12” E”
2. “Departure Song”
3. “Light Pollution”
4. “Simulacra”
5. “Belligerence”
6. “Ultima Esperanza”
7. “Milk Of My Dreams”
8. “51°28’30” S, 73°6’11” W”

The Ocean could have taken the exit ramp after their farewell Hellfest set in 2025. Instead, they went further out — all the way to a distant, thinking planet. Pre-order “Solaris” now and settle in for the trip.