Omniavatar - United Earth review
| Band: | Omniavatar |
| Album: | United Earth |
| Style: | Progressive metal |
| Release date: | December 2010 |
| A review by: | jupitreas |
01. United Earth
02. Utopian Blessing
03. Utopian Curse
04. Voidful Of Wonders
05. Mimas
06. Lady Of The Blue
07. Tremors
08. Cloned Infiltration
09. Reptilian
10. Escape Or Be Eaten
11. Salvation
12. One With The Universe
13. Andromedan Code
Ah... fantasy-themed progressive metal. For years, our favorite genre of music has been somewhat known for extremely ambitious projects that try to be as epic and vivid as Lord Of The Rings itself but end up only as potent as Frodo's tiny hobbit dick. After all, flamboyance is usually a method of obscuring one's tiny manhood. How does the latest representative of this style, United Earth by Omniavatar, fare in this regard?
Omniavatar is truly all over the place musically and reminds me particularly of the approach associated with Devin Townsend and Arjen Lucassen. However, whereas those projects are known for walking the somewhat thin line between being bombastic and simply too over the top, Omniavatar crosses this line a little bit too often. It's all in how obvious everything is, as if the purpose was to draw attention to how talented the musicians are at various instrumental approaches without any real compositional or narrative rationale behind it. Since United Earth is disjointed instrumentally, one would at least hope some properly impressive vocals would steal the show here. Unfortunately, even though the choruses are huge, main vocalist Timo has a voice that posesses about the same amount of beauty as Quorthon's used to.
I think that what is to blame for Omniavatar's overwrought and consequently diluted listening experience is that the project lacks a dedicated producer. This band is obviously creative but without a safety harness, they simply don't know when to stop with their highfallutin ideas. On the other hand, United Earth's unsubtle production does impose the sort of raw sound that at least culls the orgiastic tendencies of the music a little bit. This should nevertheless be the producer's job and if the band could score some sessions with a Devin Townsend for a future release, I am sure the results could be spectacular. In other words, Omniavatar might not be overly tiny but they definitely need some direction to actually get them suitably hard.
This is because even with the occasional cringe-inducing moment, this stuff is still in no way as shameful as any modern European power metal band you can name. In other words, on the scale of being embarrasing, Omniavatar is actually not all that high in the grand scheme of things. I can think of many worse ways of spending my time than listening to some very talented people being slightly full of themselves.
 | Written on 01.03.2011 by With Metal Storm since 2002, jupitreas has been subjecting the masses to his reviews for quite a while now. He lives in Warsaw, Poland, where he does his best to avoid prosecution for being so cool. |
Comments
Comments: 16
Visited by: 233 users
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| (((O))) Posts: 373  |
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| The Voyager The Table Posts: 152  |
Seriously, that is some of the worst cover art I've ever seen. I know you're not supposed to judge an album by it's cover, but this makes it really hard.
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| Aluminum Alloy Posts: 47  |
Quote: excellent use of metaphor there
---- Here at the edge of this world Here I gaze at a pantheon of oak, a citadel of stone If this grand panorama before me is what you call God... Then God is not dead
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| Troy Killjoy perfunctionist Staff Posts: 21306  |
I was too distracted by that majestic piece of art, I didn't notice the album cover! Ya you see what I did there.
---- "Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something."
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| wormdrink414 Elite Posts: 1295  |
Quote: I think that qualifies as hobbophobic.
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| schwanderen Posts: 32 |
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| jupitreas hi-fi / lo-life Staff Posts: 6659  |
Written by schwanderen on 02.03.2011 at 11:14 What do you think?
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| bard Posts: 171  |
This one is very strange, in that I don't exactly dig what's going on but I really don't mind it hearing it. I agree with the band being talented as well as the cringe-inducing moments.
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| schwanderen Posts: 32 |
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| jupitreas hi-fi / lo-life Staff Posts: 6659 |
Written by schwanderen on 11.03.2011 at 15:51 Oh God, I hate Johnny Depp Quote: I never mentioned homosexuality. Gotcha! Quote: Hey, its just supposed to be a funny metaphor to make the review fun to read. Take a chill pill dude.
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| schwanderen Posts: 32 |
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| jupitreas hi-fi / lo-life Staff Posts: 6659 |
Written by schwanderen on 18.03.2011 at 16:38 Indeed, I do have a responsibility to represent Metal Storm; however, the proper way to do this is debatable. I trust that my readers are capable of forming their own opinions instead of being swayed by my attempts at humor. In the end, a humorous (and harmless) review like this is actually better for Omniavatar than if I tried being all "objective" and "professional". In the end, a review is just an opinion (albeit, a well researched and well argumented one) and it is my responsibility to make it an interesting, funny and memorable read. There is no such thing as an 'official' opinion, we are all just as entitled as anyone else to love or hate an album. I am just here to state my opinion and hopefully start a discussion. PS: My penis is so tiny you wouldn't even believe it, even Howard Stern is massive compared to me!!!
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| schwanderen Posts: 32 |
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