The first thought I have when faced with Omar’s debut album “I am heavy metal, who are you?” is this is what Metallica should have sounded like with ‘load’ and ‘reload’. It’s high octane, surprisingly well polished metal with a powerful groove, a strong sense of melody and, most importantly, a sense of urgency that gets you tapping your foot instantly. Released via digital download (if you must) and limited edition 180 gr vinyl, ‘I am heavy metal, who are you?’ is a cracking example of hard hitting metal done right.
The album opens with the chrome-plated riffs and raw-throated vocals of ‘rock strongo’, a short, violent introduction to the band that delivers everything you want form a rock song in just two and a half minutes. The band continue without respite on ‘ex voto’, a track that sees Omar edging into the world that QOTSA promised on their debut album, all pummelling percussion, distorted vocals and clattering percussion. An early highlight of the album, ‘spawn of daybreak’ offers up syncopated rhythms, typically stoner-friendly lead work and a soulful vocal. There’s power and to spare here, and that sense of urgency is maintained as the band unleash increasingly Faustian lead breaks over the intelligently arranged and increasingly complex backdrop. ‘Better than apart’ sees the pace slow a touch, although the band can’t resist throwing in a wonderfully skewed time signature to give the track a unique feel. While we may find ourselves drifting a touch too far into QOTSA territory with ‘better than apart’, ‘Uchi Mata’ has some truly earth-levelling percussion and guitars set on heavy stun. A virulent earthquake of a song, at suitably high volumes it shakes the light fittings and it demonstrates the raw power of Omar at their heaviest.
Keeping the pace up, ‘bring it on’ is aptly named as it emerges from a haze of distortion to kick out some gnarly metal in the vein of Corrosion of conformity only for the black-label-society-meets-kyuss weirdness of ‘ground shaker’ to one up it in almost every way. Awash with slithering lead work and Erik Carling’s increasingly excellent and gritty vocals, ‘ground shaker’ is Omar at their very best and it offers plenty of opportunities for Erik Bjorner to demonstrate his lead skill. ‘Freaks of the night’ (Omar’s target audience?) is stoner rock heaven with its taut, psychedelic feel and crushing riffs and it becomes increasingly apparent that this is the spiritual successor of the likes of Kyuss without being a carbon copy of their much vaunted oeuvre. It’s heavy, it’s cool as fuck and it offers up exactly the sort of visceral thrills that rock fans crave. Perhaps the album’s most surprising track, ‘Ounce of dirt’ sees Omar unleashing a Sabbath-esque vibe that is laden with malevolent power. It’s another example of the band utilising familiar elements from the past to augment their own vital and vibrant sound, and although Sabbath provide the brutal starting point, Omar are not afraid to add their own distinctive and melodic spin. As the album spins toward its close, ‘Night of the freaks’ is an energetic blast of high-octane rock that keeps the adrenalin flowing before ‘bayonet’ brings the album to a suitably frenetic close, despite wrong-footing the listener with a moment of comparative calm.
Omar are a band who clearly have a keen love of the past as well as a firm desire to move forward. References abound, with the likes of QOTSA, Kyuss, Black Label Society and even Foo Fighters surfacing amidst the eleven tracks on offer here. Omar’s skill is in producing riffs with real bite whilst maintaining a certain accessibility and the album is never less than an adrenalin-fuelled, yet memorable ride that will remain in listener’s players for days on end. If the band had surfaced a decade ago, you can imagine they’d have been allowed far greater exposure than in today’s depressingly limited musical landscape, and Omar deserve attention. The music here is powerful, skilfully executed and it offers up an original enough spin on familiar ground that you never feel a nagging sense of Déjà vu whilst listening. With ‘I am heavy metal, who are you?’, Omar have successfully paid tribute to a genre they clearly love and yet offered enough of their own ideas to keep the listener guessing and it’s an album that certainly repays multiple listens. I
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