The sheer quantity of new thrash bands hailing from Italy is
astounding. But despite this swarm of young manic thrashers, it seems that most
of them are only interested in sounding like a couple of bands: Exodus and
Overkill. It takes a great label like Unspeakable Axe Records to unearth and
deliver Omnivore, an inspiring brutal death/thrash group. Their eponymous debut
is a tribute to those truly relentless bands of the past. The most notable of
which, Sepultura, they honor by covering “Arise”.
Over the course of a half hour, Omnivore delivers pounding
rhythms, break-neck drumming, and vicious vocals. In fact, the vocals tend to
be so rough that they escape the realms of thrash and belong almost solely to
death metal. In spite of the ruthless tempos, the riffs on “Omnivore” are often
somewhat technical. Perhaps not in the Coroner or Toxik vein, but certainly
more complex than your typical Slayer clone. One area where Omnivore does
parallel those tech-thrash giants is in the bass playing. Much like Sadus,
Omnivore manages to deliver relatively loud, quality basswork that cuts through
the wall of guitars. As you might imagine, these guitars are the highlight,
simply because the number of riffs in this short record greatly outnumbers the
quantity that you’d find on hundreds of other death or thrash albums. Tracks
jump from one riff to the next, to the point where none of them are memorable. While
I am usually the first one to criticize bands for poor songwriting, that’s
really not the case on “Omnivore”. For one thing, this style of thrash isn’t
conducive to being catchy. When you deliver an album that is pretty much the
equivalent of taking a jackhammer to the head, you’re better off sticking with
excessive brutality until the listener can take more, which the band does, with only a few exceptions. The other reason why
Omnivore’s songwriting style is actually pretty good is because they sprinkle
in more memorable bits alongside the aggression. They do this through the use
of spoken word intros to separate the feeling of monotony between all tracks,
as well as through the occasional interlude (“Nothing More Than Dust”, for
example).
After braving the storm presented on “Omnivore”, you’re sure
to come out with a sore neck, and the bad news is (for your neck, at least),
you’ll keep coming back to this one. This style of thrash is sorely missed
amidst the unending line of Exoclones, but just as Besieged has recently taught
us, it is a style well worth revisiting often.
Highlights
"Dead"
"Hypochrist"
"Nothing More Than Dust"
Final Rating
4.25/5 or 85%.