| |
|
Through most of Stuck Here on Snakes Way by Finnish
metal band Omnium Gatherum, I felt sort of like the heroes
of George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead as they
hide from the zombies in the shopping mall. They come at you
from so many different directions you never know which one
is going to attack you next. It is perhaps fitting that on
the band’s official web site, guitarist Markus Vanhala
lists among his musical influences: AC/DC, Judas Priest, Dimmu
Borgir and … Avril Lavigne?
You cannot accuse these guys of being derivative. Stuck
Here on Snakes Way moves effortlessly between every metal
genre and subgenre you can think of. There’s thrash
(“Into Sea”), power (“Truth” and “Spiritual)
and death metal (“Bastard-O”). Hell, they even
throw in two softer, moody pieces (“The Snake and the
Way” and “Just Signs”) to add a few more
colors to the palate. Vocalist Jukka Pelkonen sticks to a
mostly death metal growl, but its effective. Vanhala shines
on “Spiritual” with nice lead work and keyboardist
Aapo Koivisto adds a menacing, horror movie undertone to some
of the tracks.
The only problem I had was that the band seems a little too
content to just rock out. Songs like “Spiritual,”
“Undertaker,” the dual-sided “The Snake
and the Way/Into Sea” and “Just Signs” hint
at even more complex, daring music. But a few times the band
just settles for tracks like “A-Part of God” and
“In Sane World,” which are fairly straightforward
metal songs. As daring as the group is in some spots, it seems
complacent in others.
Nonetheless, Stuck Here on Snakes Way is a solid
offering, one that will give metal fans a little of everything.
The band puts the pedal to the metal and is never boring.
This is a hard record to go wrong with if you are looking
for kickass metal with a little bit of brain in there.
®2007 Live-Metal.net
|
