Band:	Wormed
Album:	Omegon
Style:	Brutal death metal, Grindcore
Release date:	July 2024

01. Automaton Virtulague
02. Pareidolia Robotica
03. Protogod
04. Pleoverse Omninertia
05. Malignant Nexus
06. Virtual Teratogenesis
07. Aetheric Transdimensionalization
08. Gravitational Servo Matrix
09. Omegon

I never thought I'd see a brutal death metal concept album about Oregon.

Oh, that's not what that title means? My bad. Apparently it's "a sonic voyage set against the backdrop of an ancient cosmic conflict where civilizations vie for the omnipotence of a substance beyond the mortal coil", which is a timeline in which Oregon probably doesn't exist as a concept anymore. Regardless, death metal, especially the technical kind, and cosmic themes have been going hand in hand even since the genre's inception. Hence why a lot of the albums in this cool cosmic metal chart I found fall in the technical death metal category. Wormed themselves also make an appearance in the most death metal centered category of it, alongside bands like Portal and Mithras. Of course there's more to death metal's relationship with the cosmos than just this one chart I found, but what I find interesting is that it's almost always a kind of death metal that's more technical, compared to the cosmic black metal that is more simplistic and atmosphere focused.

Also Wormed is a brutal death metal band, and though there have been other brutal death metal bands in this same niche (see Artificial Brain or Afterbirth), I couldn't imagine a cosmic brutal death metal band that wasn't also a technical death metal one. And technical Wormed definitely are. Theirs is a name I have seen quite a lot before within this niche, but because of how relaxed their release schedule is (this is only their fourth album) it wasn't until now that I realized that the band goes back all the way to the late 90s. And there are some differences in Wormed happening in the eight years since 2016's Krighsu, and that's more than just the two changes in lineup, but it's still personnel related.

What I mean is that Omegon is mixed and mastered by Colin Marston, a name that has had its hands in all things mind-bogglingly brutal and technical and suffocating both as a performer and as a producer. Here it's just the latter, but that's a change that is very apparent when putting Omegon and Krighsu side by side. The sound is cleaner and more modern, leaving room for a larger dynamic range, not as abrasive as it once was, while also not being as dense and suffocating as other bands that Marston has had his hands in. There's more to Omegon than just "cleaner Wormed", but that is the most apparent change. In a way this also makes Omegon the most atmospheric that I've heard them be, due to also a lot of moments using processed vocals to contrast the gurgly harsh vocals. or where the grooves are written in a more atmosphere inducing repetitive way, as opposed to the usual overwhelming style.

Fans of Wormed won't be disappointed (unless they really hate cleaner production), and the rest of the folks will spend all their mental energy trying to latch unto the ever changing riffing.