OmegaLord, along with having an awesome name, is an unsigned Heavy Metal band out of the United States. This is their 2005 release and features a solid offering of no frills Heavy Metal that should appeal to most fans of the genre.

The overall style of the band is fairly simple. The riffs are in the fore-front and have a rather heavy tone to them and feature a decent amount of groove mixed with some 80’s influences. There are no Speed Metal riffs to be found here, but the guitars are up-front, up-tempo, and above all else catchy. I have to admit I’m not a huge fan of Groove oriented Heavy Metal but OmegaLord pulls it off well. This is in part due to a baritone clean vocalist who has a nice gruff edge to his voice. Sure enough the range is limited but the gruff and down and dirty vocal style goes perfectly with the down and dirty riffs. Occasionally the band will slow down for some pure Ozzy-era Sabbath groove such as on Steady Stream Of Souls (which does eventually speed up). There are almost no instances of double bass head-bangery, but the drumming is, as mentioned, up-tempo (save for the few slowed down groove moments) and simplistic and catchy vocal attack mixed with well-placed groove and traditional 80's Thrash-like riffs makes for the aforementioned catchiness of the music to shine through. Scattered throughout, are of course, solos in each song that were instantly forgotten in some songs and well thought-out in others (e.g. at the end of Endless Winter)

The slightly Thrashy moments blend well with the groove influences (this is nothing new as bands have been combining the two since the mid 80’s). Regardless, my preferred songs on the release were the Thrashier of the songs such as Scattered Ashes, which also features another memorable solo. Above all else the sound of OmegaLord is uncompromising and fun. It’s a bit of a throw back perhaps, but the production is modern and polished (for a self-released CD) and there were some catchy riffs (my favorite being the main riff on Turn To Stone).

That’s really about it. Nothing ground breaking is found here, but if you’re into the whole Groove based Heavy Metal thing with some minor Thrash sounds than OmegaLord will be a band to look out for. Unfortunately, there isn’t a lot of variation despite the few slowed down moments and while the sound is certainly pure and unapologetic, I’ve always preferred pure in the sense of Maiden and Priest influences rather than Sabbath, but I know many of you are the other way around. Not bad for unsigned but I’m afraid the band may have to vary up their song writing just a bit more and experiment more with the slow sections like on the track Darkness (which has familiar but fresh feeling to it rather than just familiar). Turned To Stone also gave off more of an Epic Heavy Metal feeling to it, due to the melodic progression of the riffs, and vocal phrasing, and this worked really well for OmegaLord. Anyway, the band is just getting started and should be paid attention to for the next few years to see how they improve if nothing else.