Send "Omnium Gatherum " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Sputnikmusic |
 Omnium Gatherum escape the trap that comes with all the second and third tier pre-release hype from metal-zines and really come out with something powerful here, an album that draws from critic-heralded melodic death metal groups from across the world to make their fifth and best release, New World Shadows. Amon Amarth can be heard here ala the powerful guitar tone of the mid-tempo riffs and the deep growls of vocalist Jukka Pelconen; the work of Finnish Insomnium and Amorphis seemingly flow through the band’s melodic work as well, guitar and vocal; and lastly, Be’lakor and In Mourning wave their progressive metal heads in the band’s songwriting, particularly on both nine-minute book-ending pieces, “Everfields” and the glorious “Deep Colds”. So is New World Shadows just a bunch of copycatting? Well, yes, actually, it sort of is. Yet Omnium Gatherum comprise and meld the work of those bands mentioned above into a sound of their very own, in a way, greatly improving over the songwriting and playing of their past releases, and making an album full of excellent, flowing melodic death metal tracks in the process. While highlights are plentiful, New World Shadows certainly works best when played all the way through. There’s something climatic and euphoric that comes when one hears the final climax of closer “Deep Colds” after traveling through the album’s contents, for instance, bringing to mind the same type of effect that came at the end of Insomnium’s “Last Statement” on their 2006 album, Above The Weeping World. In retrospect, it makes sense, then, that many were turned off by New World Shadows title track when it was released a few weeks ago – in context of the rest of the album, the “repetitive” nature of the riffs here work well in this sort of lulling, transitional track, segueing the more confrontational and involved “Ego” with highlight “Soul Journeys”. It’s the latter mentioned song, though, "Soul Journeys", along with the closer, that truly is New World Shadow’s defining moment. Here Omnium Gatherum empoy varying tempos and catchy riffs to build the backbone of the song, while Pelconen puts on his best vocal performance and Dan Swano offers his cleans. Here the Swamo's vocals work to build a wonderful atmosphere for “Soul Journeys”, once again bringing to mind Insomnium in how Swano puts his voice to use to engage and sooth the listener. The other areas in which the singer employs his cleans are on the title cut and on the closer for chorus-like melodies that work well within the songs. It goes without saying, however, that Omnium Gatherum are wise to use these moments sparingly, though, being careful to avoid the pitfall of many melodic death bands where the overuse of clean vocals greatly damages and oversaturates the music– kind of like, say, what happened to Universum....full text |
| Angrymetalguy |
| There was a time when melodic death metal was every breath I took. While it’s been a long time since that was the case, I certainly can say that I spent the late 90s and early 00s listening to my fair share of melodic Swedish death metal and loving it. But since then melodic death metal has kinda fallen off a cliff. This is partially due to the dawning of metalcore and the co-opting of Swedish thrash and death metal by hardcore kids, but I think it’s mainly because just like every scene after a while you start growing tired of the sound. Every new album that gets released gets a “Yeah, well, I’ve heard this before.” While there have been some notable melodic death metal records in the last couple of years—Barren Earth and Be’lakor come to mind—only the former has really stuck out as truly remarkable. That is until I checked out New World Shadows from Omnium Gatherum. It should be obvious from the title, but the fundamental currency of the melodic death metal band is the fine line between addictive melody and technicality and extremity. This line is not easy to walk. While bands like In Flames were almost too melodic on their earlier stuff, there was still a feeling of extremity. That extremity was lost by, for example, Soilwork, who basically put form above function and began ham-fistedly shoving pop choruses into every song. Omnium Gatherum, on the other hand, walks this line with the balance of seasoned performers. Where other bands are tempted to throw in lots of clean vocals, New World Shadows sports very few, and yet, I can’t remember the last time I’ve heard such poppy melodies and song structures. Aside from the first and last songs on the record, which both end up at about 9:50 in length, the rest of this album is loaded with pop-laced melodies worthy of Stratovarius or Sonata Arctica, more than a death metal band....full text |
| Thenewreview |
| Omnium Gatherum is a melodic death metal band from Finland. New World Shadows is their fifth full-length release, and their first on Lifeforce Records. They’ve also been on Nuclear Blast and Candlelight. The style they present here is a very mature and restrained combination of Kalmah, Soilwork, Dark Tranquillity, and Amon Amarth. Although their backbone rhythm section is as tight and punchy as it needs to be, the guitars and keyboard bring the principle focus onto the melodies, which will instantly soften up that lump of coal the metal scene calls a heart. Glimmers of introspective reflection and melancholy are summoned up, but surprisingly, the music remains quite heavy. All of the bands mentioned in the above comparison tend to drive straight ahead most of the time with thrash beats and the occasional blast. Although neither is absent on New World Shadows, Omnium Gatherum’s songs are more akin to the steady advance of a mammoth than the frantic stampede of some smaller, less noble beast. This is not to say that their tempos are slow, just that the band knows where their songs are going and gives them the time to get there. In addition, the album flow is superb. There is no awkwardness in passing from longer songs to shorter songs, and each seems to fit in right where it was placed....full text |
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