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Melodic death metal from Finland, third full-length album released in 2007.
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Quality, originality and sincere attitude - Top quality Finnish steel! OMNIUM GATHERUM took its first steps in a gloomy and oily cellar in the south-eastern harbor town of Kotka in Finland during the spring days of 1996. Omnipotent young fellas Markus Vanhala and Olli Lappalainen were extremely influenced by the rapidly ascending wave of scandinavian melodic death metal and the polar alliance between despairing brutal metal and the hopeful melodic and traditional side of music.
So, Omnium Gatherum came to life and the result was a band of many directions and styles, some of them clearly visible while others were more unseen - namely working and keeping it all together under the moniker of melodic life-and-death metal and bastardizing it with various influences.
During the next years OG rehearsed, composed and released demos and built up a quality cult following in the underground. After the highly acclaimed "Wastrel" demo the band signed a deal with the growing UK metal label Rage Of Achilles in 2001 and the OGs were sent right away to the Sonic Pump studio to record their debut EP "Steal The Light". The EP was released after a long, long wait in September 2002 and both the critics and the audience seemed to like the stuff.
The debut full-length album "Spirits And August Light" was released in April 2003 via Rage Of Achilles and gave the band some well deserved attention within the underground metal community and the press. The album showed another side to the light: despite the clear and catchy melodies and the stable rhythm all along the way it had a lifelike taste of dirtiness to it, with desperate love and uninvited hate searching for an outlet, like something you didn't want to see happen but it did nonetheless. The reviews were unbelievably great, for example being the only Finnish band so far with a debut review of 5/5 in Kerrang! and all the major metal magazines followed in the same vein. So far, so good... so what!
Next in line to be was the band signing to a metal giant label Nuclear Blast in the autumn of 2004 to release the second album "Years In Waste". More technical, more progressive, more sophisticated but at the same time colder and moving away from the listener was the new recipe that was completed with themes from the wasted youth, depression and soul-loss, shamanistic metaphors leading the two-fold way back in time while the moon shone stranger than ever. It is always darkest right before the morning. In spring 2006 an era came to an end in OG and the long-time singer Antti Filppu was replaced by Jukka Pelkonen aka J.
"Stuck Here On Snakes Way" was the debut OG album featuring J on vocals and it was released in April 2007 after a successful UK tour and a signing to Candlelight Records. "Snakes Way" is an endless road dealing with the choices in our existence and the temptation within the mind of every soul on this third planet of ours, and unfortunately so many people are stuck... The band didn't get stuck with the album and the "Snake's Way" conducted the band to do tours with Dark Tranquillity, Caliban and Entombed, spiced with a large amount of Finnish headlining gigs and the #31 position in the Finnish national album chart!
Omnium Gatherum´s 4th album "The Redshift" was nailed and furled at Sound Supreme and SouthEastSounds Studios during the spring days of 2008 and it was mixed and mastered at Unisound Studio in Sweden by the legendary metal-mastermind Dan Swanö, who commented the album with his nice words: "I hate bands like Omnium Gatherum, they are so good it pisses me off!!! Their fine blend of melody and aggression is so good I actually thought about stealing the record and releasing it as my own. You won´t find a better album in years."
"The Redshift" really introduces the camp OG in its very strongest form to date! The album is full of contrasts; melodic but yet brutal, lots of changing atmospheres, moods from sorrow to joy and from hope to despair, very catchy but still stand outs after lots of listens and the sands of time. An OG milestone, a classic! ...And it´s all about riding the red shift!
The Redshift riders can be seen touring in Europe with Nile and Grave in autumn 2008. |
Omnium Gatherum Official Website
Omnium Gatherum At MySpace
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After putting out a fantastic album like 'Spirits And August Light' and then following it up with the fairly lukewarm effort 'Years In Waste', 'Stuck Here On Snake's Way' acts as a big fork in Omnium Gatherum's road. They could either give us another great album and classify 'Years In Waste' as a momentary lapse in quality, or become another band where 'the old stuff' is all that matters. Things start off well, with a gorgeous acoustic track and the storming single 'Into Sea', but from then on in, 'Snake's Way' becomes a drag to listen to. The big issue with the songwriting here is that most of these tracks start in a thoroughly pedestrian manner, and even if the band develops it in an interesting or effective way, the listener is already totally disinterested. A melodic death metal album needs to grab you by the balls from the word go, preferably not letting go at all. Sticking with that metaphor, what this album does is swipes madly, but to no avail.
While some classic lead and harmony parts can be found occasionally, the majority of music here is driven by some kind of generic crunch riff, and maybe given a drop of life by the drums or keyboards. The production and mixing on this album is poor, a clear attempt to be 'raw' and 'aggressive', which instead ends up being inoffensive to the point of tedium. Take the album closer, 'Spiritual', as an example. The song is well written, and contains an absolute beauty of a motif, but is drained by the tinny production, as well as a questionable tempo. Fixing up the guitar and drum tone alone could have added another 15% onto my score for this album. Their last two albums both had passable (although not excellent) production, so why cock it up this time?
Another thing that's different here is the vocalist. Omnium Gatherum's last vocalist had a strange sound and technique, but it worked excellently with the band's sound. The same cannot really be said for new boy Jukka Pelkonen. His bark sounds aged and unconvincing, though he does compliment parts of this album. We can only hope the band's next album will gel better with him, as their taste in vocalists is clearly based more on chemistry than what is generally considered a good vocal style. It would be nice to see more of his lyrics though, as they are the sort of nonsense that provides some sort of amusement and interest when the music itself cannot.
All in all inconsistent songwriting, uninspired riffing and poor production bog this album down heavily, but the standout songs ('Just Signs', 'Into Sea' and 'In Sane World') are still little hints that this band can still write some kickass material. Here's hoping. |
As requested by a fellow member from USA!  |
