Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Omen
Label: Puresteel Records
Release: 2016
Duration: 43:35
Rating: 4.5/5
Omen, old-school heavy metal veterans from sun-scorched California, are back after a full 13 years since their last studio album, »Eternal Black Dawn« (2003), with their seventh release overall, which they’ve titled »Hammer Damage«.
The band, held together by original founding member and guitarist Kenny Powell, absolutely does not disappoint with the new record. It’s got everything, and so it keeps the stylistic and sonic continuity with everything we know when the name Omen comes up. That goes for their golden age too, the eighties. There’s really only one remark: what on earth took the guys so long to piece this album together?
Kenny Powell handled the production himself. That’s why it has kept its remarkable rawness, an unpolished, living and dirty sound, with a feeling that builds as you listen, as if Omen were serving up a new live album. It’s an incredibly authentic take on new ideas and a faithful transfer of them onto a recording. The band’s new studio album holds on to the trademark format of old-school wild heavy metal. It’s dark, it’s occult, it’s refined and aimed squarely at the »eighties« era. It has an obscure gloominess, yet at the same time a clearly perceptible dose of epic bombast, which in its raw production also recalls, for example, the vibe and songwriting approach of Manilla Road (the song Eulogy for a Warrior) in their days of higher creative inspiration. It also becomes clear pretty quickly over the course of the album that Omen are what you’d want from the band of »big words and empty deeds«, I’m talking about the »oiled-up« Manowar, for twenty years or more now. The song Chaco Canyon will unintentionally, modestly remind you of that.
As mentioned. On this album everything works the way it should. The guitar phrases are inventive, clearly crafted and therefore full of charisma. The songs grow gradually in atmosphere, from the intros through the verses and pre-choruses to the epic choruses. It follows that the listener can enjoy a heap of transitional passages throughout, craftily seasoned with guitar harmonies, which means we get an extremely lively and dynamic flow of events. Kenny Powell really did spend an extremely long time brewing all these hearty ideas for the new studio album, and Omen consequently came out of the whole story as big winners. Modestly, without big words and promises, but upright and standing tall. With an excellent new record in hand, that is. The cherry on top of this record’s excellence is Kevin Groocher with his raspy vocals, whose gruffness can evoke the theatricality of someone like Jon Oliva (Savatage), and here and there fleetingly evokes the presence of the late J.D. Kimball. With Groocher’s contribution the album comes across, in full measure, as theatrically »old-school« and even genuinely rebellious, because the delivery of the verses simply comes alive. This is a return to the golden days of true-believer songwriting, faithful to the American school of eighties heavy metal.
Seriously. An album that needs nothing added, and even less taken away. An album that has to bring Omen back to the old European continent on a new tour as soon as possible. In case anyone remembers, Omen played in Kranj on March 17, 2015 and put on a top-notch show there. And »Hammer Damage« offers just such a show. It’s a merciless kick in the teeth and a daft smack to the forehead. Modeled on the best that the genuine character of the old American metal school has to offer. Time to give your metal noggins a good scrub with it.
Omen – Era of Crisis:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSV3MN7qo6M
Lineup
Kevin Goocher – vocals
Kenny Powell – guitar
Andy Haas – bass guitar
Steve Wittig – drums
Production
Kenny Powell
Track list
1. Hammer Damage
2. Chaco Canyon (Sun Dagger)
3. Cry Havoc
4. Eulogy for a Warrior
5. Knights
6. Hellas
7. Caligula
8. Era of Crisis
9. A.F.U.
