Bad Omens - “Bad Omens”
Rating: 8.8/10 *Reviewed Before Release on 8/19* Buy on iTunes or through their Merch Store Bad Omens is a band I had heard about through a series of tweets from both their label Sumerian Records and a friend of mine who raved about their single titled “Glass Houses.” I insisted that I did not listen to any singles when I heard about them at first because I had tickets to the “Sumerian 10 Year Tour” at our local venue in Hartford in which Bad Omens was the opening band. Once I arrived to that show I was immediately granted chaos by the fact one of my personal favorite locals from my area, In Honor Of, were taking the stage as I walked through the door. Once that set wrapped up the main stage had opened and I was granted a glance at what Bad Omens was and I was swept off my feet like a damsel in distress. It’s hard really to explain what Bad Omens is as a genre other than they kinda provide a later more Bring Me The Horizon vibe around the time they released their record Sempiternal as Brian stated earlier, so with that you get the electronic metalcore vibes that are somewhat on the rise and is really kick ass. Earlier this morning I was greeted by a package in the mail that contained my copy of their debut self-titled record which starts out with the track “Glass Houses” and their other single “Exit Wounds” which are two outstanding tracks providing the perfect amount of melody and destruction. You can actually feel the resemblance between their vocalist Nicholas Ryan and the Bring Me The Horizon frontman Oliver Sykes vocally and even visually. “Exit Wounds” has easily one of the most easily memorable breakdowns of the record even though it’s cut oddly short. If there is one thing you learn from the first two tracks on this record, it’s that these guys know how to provide crushing heavy vocals and a perfect melody from their clean choruses. Once you manage to survive the malevolent intro you are greeted with a much softer more emotional piece of art that they called “The Worst In Me” which makes for an amazing sound and tone if you are in a more sad state of mind but also leaves a perfect taste in your mouth on how they can perform with both fast and more slow tempo tracks. “F E R A L” is the track that I had stuck in the back of my brain for the longest amount of time with the words “I’ll take my time once I’ve sunk my teeth in” which gives perfect reasoning for the title of the track, making it seem like the band is a pack of feral wolves. The bands perfect mix of typical metalcore instrumental and electronic background noise makes perfect sense with “F E R A L” as you can tell with the sections of the track that provide no vocals but instead a more ambient sounding instrumental that sounds like something out of one of the Transporter films adding that line of suspense. “Enough, Enough Now” sounds almost like a heavier song off of Linkin Park’s record Hybrid Theory with the heavier styled vocals but slows down perfectly providing the right amount of emotion with the softer more saddened styled cleans. This song sets the example showing that Bad Omens is that band that can pull off both style vocals with one vocalist and making sure that you know it right off the bat. “Malice” sounds oddly similar to “Glass Houses” just at a bit of a faster pace with a different tone which is the reason this record isn’t getting the nine that I wanted to give it originally after listening to it the first time around. However, with that being said “Malice” has a stellar breakdown and the section after it is beyond me and seriously well constructed with its evil sound. “Hedonist” is a very short track at a mere two minutes but it almost sounds like a hardcore track with minor elements of metalcore and that’s kind of awesome, once again proving that they can switch their sound up and sound great regardless. It’s in no way a beatdown track but it’s super fast and has more hardcore style vocal similarities with the perfect speed to two step around your bedroom and/or living room too upon listening to this track. It almost has the perfect amount angst to make you wanna smash your car into a guardrail while driving, although it falls just mildly short because of the length and if it provided some sort of slamming guitar riffs it would have been perfect. You’ll feel okay with “Hedonist” and its length after your realize that hardcore songs are usually around a mere two minutes regardless. “Broken Youth” does in fact bring the slams that “Hedonist” was missing around its two minute mark with the best guitar ambiance that you will find on this record making it my personal favorite track. I believe that when I saw Bad Omens they played this track live however nobody knew the lyrics so it was kind of a miss at first. I only remember people really going insane for the tracks that they knew and even then the crowd was just kinda meh in comparison to when Erra took the stage moments after them. If there’s one thing that this record as a whole proves it’s that they deserve to be playing the shows they’ve been playing and it’s only a matter of time before you see bands like Bring Me The Horizon take them out on arena tours because as it stands, Asking Alexandria is already taking them out on their North American tour at the end of the year. “Crawl” is one of those songs you almost wanna see live because of the instrumental and see how the stage presence would be. Around the three minute mark you get an echo-y tone of singing that would make perfect to have the crowd shout back at the vocalist, which is bound to happen sooner or later. “The Letdown” felt very cheesy at first with the intro instrumental but when the vocals begin to pick up you can tell that this is in fact another very sad song that then picks up in tempo around the chorus but even then it’s the most forgettable track on this record sadly but it's immediately crushed by the predecessor track “Reprise (The Sound Of The End)” which almost sounds like something that Fit For a King would of named a track around their Creation/Destruction period. Ultimately, this track feels incredibly similar to the song “House of Wolves” by Bring Me The Horizon which is not necessarily a bad thing as that was one of the better tracks on Sempiternal. After that you reach the outro song of the record which was released as a single not too long ago called “The Fountain” which is another one of the more sappy 2012 sounding metalcore songs, which is cool. Once I hit this point of the record I realized I’m very satisfied with this record as a whole and these guys are really making their impact on the metalcore scene as a whole. It’s only a matter of time before you see more news of bigger things to come for these guys. If you’re still sleeping on Bad Omens, pick up this record or stream it when it releases, I promise if you are a fan of 2012 metalcore or Sempiternal by Bring Me The Horizon you will be blown away. Until I see these guys again, I’ll make sure to listen to this record time and time again and take every opportunity given to see these guys live again. - Dakota G.
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