Finnish six-pack Omnium Gatherum existed for about 10 years according to their band history info, and in that period they changed their lead vocalist and record label for every of their now three album releases. Sign of a band that won't let anything hold them back and has stamina - nice.

Opening track “The Snake and The Way” is a very melodic piece with acoustic guitar, and having read that this was supposed to be a death metal band, I expected then rest to be maximum speed total mayhem, but on a lot of the following tracks (“Into Sea”, “Dysnomia”, “A-Part Of God” , “The Third Flame” and more) it’s more like a mix of melodic power feel, thrashy riffs, melodic guitar underlying pieces and solos, and often gothic-sounding keyboards. “Just Signs” stands out from the rest, being in general a rather slow, gothic-sounding song.

There are lots of surprises through the album, and in some of the tracks (e.g. “Bastard-O”, and “Spiritual”) some inputs of traditional heavy metal, southern rock metal and industrial – you never know what the next one will sound like.

Growling vocals is NOT my favourite, and I’m afraid it pulls some points from my overall rating of this album, but having said that, I think the new vocalist Jukka Pelkonen does it better than the one I’ve heard on an earlier recording (ok, a live clip, but still…).

The most consistent death-like about this CD is the lead-vocals, and apart from that, most of the way O.G. reminds me more of a power/thrash metal band with some death, Goth and industrial influences, than a death metal act, and that’s just fine with me. In my book they should just get a singer that can actually sing (!) and not a growler, then I’d put this CD on a lot more often, than is the case now. I must admit that the album really grew on me after 3 – 4 spins, and listening to it in headphones more concentrated, I discovered much more in this bands music, than the first few times.

The cover doesn’t do that much for me, in understanding the universe of O.G. – what does flying stinging jellyfish, a man walking an empty road and two moons have to do with each other, and is it supposed to mean anything?

My general impression is that this is a very diverse and interesting album that could appeal to someone with taste in death, thrash, melodic power and/or more, and the mixture of these. I particularly like the combination of melodic guitar/keyboards and thrashy guitar riffs.

You can check out their homepage (see below as usual), but unless you’re really cool in Finnish (being from Finland probably would help a lot in that), the info you can get, is mostly on the previous releases. There you’ll also find a video of “Into Sea” which gives a good picture of what O.G. generally sounds like. Try it out!