Originally written by Erik Thomas
There was once a time when Finland’s Omnium Gatherum was the new darlings of the beleaguered melodic death metal scene. Their 2003 debut, Spirits and August Light, was a breath of fresh air in a stale genre, and the band was poised to single handedly take the mantle left by In Flames as they jumped on the shit wagon. However, some vocalist changes and two lackluster albums in 2004’s Years in Waste and 2007’s Stuck Here on Snakes Way saw the band fall somewhat. But they came back in 2008 with a new album The Redshift, which saw the band return to their earlier form and now with New World Shadows, the band looks to be once again among the Finnish and melodeath elite.
From the opening strains of the gripping 9-minute opener “Everfields”, it’s apparent that Omnium Gatherum has taken bigger nod from fellow Finns like Insomnium and added a thicker air of despondency and somber melodies to their usually more energetic Gothenburg-tinged sound. As an opener, it’s an attention-grabbing number, and its climactic gallop signals it as arguably one of the best songs of this early year. Vocalist Jukka Pelkonen (ex-Elenium) has settled in nicely, fully developed his range with a typically deep Finnish growl and a mid-range rasp, and the rest of the band seems to have found the mojo from their debut. The slightly proggy synths delicately soothe the riffs which are plied with a rich, robust tone, and as a result, the whole album just melts into your ears.
And thus is the grand balance of New World Shadows as Omnium Gatherum strikes the perfect symbiosis of cantering, solo filled melodeath (“Ego”, “Nova Flame”, “The Distance”) against the more rending, typically Finnish lope of their more downtrodden peers (“Soul Journeys”, “Watcher of the Skies”, “Deep Cold”) and tracks that cover both (“Everfields”, “New World Shadows”). The only misstep is the strangely paced and sung “”An Infinite Mind”, but with that exception, the album is played with a panache that the band (and the genre) has been missing for a few years.
As the album opened with the stunning “Everfields”, it closes with the equally ambitious and rending “Deep Cold”, bookending the disc in brilliance and signaling that Omnium Gatherum has smartly ingrained their inherent Finnish tones into melodic death metal and taken the Insomnium path to excellence once again.
