Hi folks, I've just received an album that is making my day. Saturday afternoon is the right time to listen to some dark, ambient and metal music and Omens is echoing everywhere in my house. I'm at my third or maybe fourth listening of it and each time I discover something new, that detail that makes the difference and each time I say “wow”!
Omens is the latest album from Atlantis, a metal, post rock and electronic Dutch project that is able to create really original, great music. The first time I heard from it was some years ago when I discovered Carpe Omnium and it was a nice discovery considering that from that day I've always kept an eye on it's music.
Atlantis started in the summer of 2006 as a solo project by Gilson Heitinga from Utrecht, the Netherlands, taking influences from soundscapes, metal, doom, noise, electronica and rock as well as Massive Attack, Nine Inch Nails, Neurosis and SWANS. Combining all these elements together Gilson gave the light to his first release, Carpe Omnium, trough the well known UK label Field-Records – this is also one of my favourite labels. To support that release a live band was formed and the actual line up is: Sander Bolk, Samir Boureghda, Gilson Heitinga, Carlo Leijtens, Gido Leijtens and Marijn Slottheir. I had the occasion to see them live at Dunk!festival 2012 and I can guarantee you that their live performances are pretty pretty good.
Omens, the new full-length album, is inspired to the band's live performances and has in it the same passion you can instantly feel when you see them live. The elements in it are more or less the same of the previous albums: atmospheric electronics, shrieking noise and and repeating metal riffs combined for a really heart-breaking music journey. But this time there's something more: thanks to the collaboration with the singer Big from Germany and with Sweden's Johannes Persson from Cult Of Luna on several projects, for this album the vocalist Sanne Mus brought her voice to the songs 'And She Drops The 7th Veil' and 'Omen'. And the outcome is a great collaboration.
'Rapture' is the first of the six songs composing the album and it's a great start. As soon as you'll press play you'll be transferred into a ghost city where industrial sound with echoing vocals is the only protagonist. Here start your adventure. Amazing overture.
The following 'Raptor' has a completely different sound: the rhythm is pursuing and the combination of electronica with the guitar riffs is aggressive but is also warm. In this song you'll recognize the real live drums that are present throughout the whole album making a big difference between Omens and the previous albums from the Dutch band.
'And She Drops The 7th Veil' stands right in the middle of the album and with its 15 minutes length is also the longest track of Omens. The power of 'And She Drops The 7th Veil' is impressive: deep guitar riffs, doom metal, industrial and shoegaze sounds are all together, and don't forget those amazing drums. Towards the end the vocals will bring you into a desolate land where everything is possible, it will only depends on your imagination. The voice of Sanne Mus is just divine. Stunning song.
The break of 'The Path Into' with its three minutes full of tension where you are again walking into that ghost city is incredible and a work of pure electronic art – the last seconds are breathtaking - that softly will land you into ten instrumental minutes that compose the stunning 'Widowmaker'. Jump on a car, drive with no destination and listen to this music, or simply lay down and close your eyes: you are in a movie and the soundtrack is so involving that you'll live the movie you're listening to. I get lost.
I simply love 'Omen' the title track of the record and also the last one of this stunning music journey. There's a devastating sense of darkness and devastation in it and the music is so deep that you'll feel perfectly these sensations. But towards the end the incredible voice of Sanne Mus is so warm that behaves like a protective creature that will give you that sense of hope you need.
Omens is an album full of emotions, those emotions that only great artists are able to transmit. This is the power of music, this is the power that Atlantis perfectly plays.
Omens is available in CD, LP (black and gold) and digital tracks through Burning World Records.
