[schema type=”review” name=”Omnium Gatherum – Grey Heavens ” description=”Label: Lifeforce Records” author=”Basak Günel” pubdate=”2016-02-26″ ]
Omnium Gatherum is a Finnish melodic death metal band. They have been active since 1996 and delivering some fine melodic death metal with different elements, which makes them quite unique in the scene. The band will release “Grey Heavens” at the end of this month!
While writing this review, I remembered the time when I interviewed the vocalist Jukka on March 2015 and he was quite excited about the record. Now I can understand why…The first thing that caught my attention was the evolution in the band’s sound; while the previous record “Beyond”(2013) had more of that typical Finnish melodeath approach only, I see more confidence and more diversity in the band’s sound with “Grey Heavens”.
Let’s go deeper into the record.. During the interview, Jukka told me that the album was gonna be more straightforward with lots of melodies and this is indeed the case! “Grey Heavens” is even more ‘brutal’ at times but we are not only talking about ‘melodeath’ brutal here; the band has experimented a lot as I got the feeling that apart from the typical sound, we got to hear some more diversity which is quite different from previous records. Surely, they have always delivered a different type of death metal but this time, they take this aspect even to a whole new level, which I found quite surprising and refreshing!
The highlights? My favorite and probably the most interesting and the darkest song in the record is “Majesty and Silence”. I think this song stands out as we get to see how far the band can experiment and even switch and blend many styles in one song. On the other hand, “Rejuvenate!” and “Foundation” will definitely please the fans of the typical OmGa sound. The record is mostly up-beat and really dynamic but then the band has delivered “Grey Heavens” which is the ‘slowest’ and the only ballad-like song. It’s purely instrumental and it could have even been the intro or the outro of the album! Another favorite of mine is definitely “Storm Front”; the song has this interesting sci-fi vibe into it with the futuristic melodies and the dynamic OmGa sound!
“Grey Heavens” is definitely beyond my expectations. As a fan of the band, I must also say that I didn’t expect such diversity and evolution from the band. Definitely one of the bests of 2016.. The band will also tour Europe soon so catch them live if they come near you!
Line-up:
Markus Vanhala – guitar
Jukka Pelkonen – vocals
Jarmo Pikka – drums
Aapo Koivisto – keyboards
Joonas Koto – guitar
Erkki Silvennoinen – bass
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Tracklist: 01. The Pit 02. Skyline 03. Frontiers 04. Majesty and Silence 05. Rejuvenate! 06. Foundation 07. The Great Liberation 08. Ophidian Sunrise 09. These Grey Heavens 10. Storm Front |
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