(Andy Synn offers up a litany of praise for a brand new band you definitely need to check out)
Is there anything better than discovering a new band that you immediately want to start recommending to everyone else?
Well, yes, obviously… and if you said “no” then you’re probably just not doing it right… but that doesn’t make these discoveries any less special or enjoyable.
Case in point, the self-titled debut album from California Sludge/Doom quintet Ominess didn’t take long to grab my attention – I think it was less than a minute into opener “Cathedral” – and not much longer than that (probably around the time the first absolutely massive chord came crashing out of the speaker) for it to become clear that this was an album that more people needed to know about.
Landing somewhere between Primitive Man and Darkher, mixing the shuddering sludgery of the former with the shimmering Doom-gaze of the latter, while also capturing and communicating such a raw and palpable sense of angst and anguish – especially during a track like heartfelt-yet-harrowing closer “Queer As In Fuck U(SA)” – that comparisons to the likes of long-time NCS favourites Body Void also aren’t out of the question, Ominess is an album unafraid to be as vulnerable as it is visceral.
The moody, mellifluous vocals of Destiny Espinoza, for example, provide the record with a sense of elegant (and eloquent, switching back and forth between English and Spanish with enviable ease) beauty that is almost irresistible, drawing the audience in with their deft, delicate phrasings and crystalline clarity… before her absolutely monstrous growl shatters any sense of serenity which may have built up in a way which will no doubt serve as a serious shock to any listeners who are less than prepared for this sudden (and striking) sonic shift.
But while Espinoza is perhaps the stand-out “star” of the album (especially when she really cuts loose, whether plumbing the guttural depths or soaring towards the heavens in a display of uncompromising, unadulterated emotion), one shouldn’t downplay the instrumental abilities, or the songwriting skills, of the rest of the band either, as it’s their performance during tracks like the breathtaking ebb-and-flow of “Disquiet” and the gorgeously gloomy slow-burn (and gargantuan crescendo) of “Beneath an Elm” – moving seamlessly between sombre calm and crushing heaviness – which gives their vivacious vocalist the room she needs to be so unconstrained.
It’s ambitious, just under eleven minute, penultimate track “Encuerame” (transl: “Uncover Me”), however, which really shows the band pushing themselves to realise their full potential, elevating that sense of raw vulnerability I mentioned earlier into something even more intimate and intense – especially during the song’s shadowy mid-section – while simultaneously heightening the heaviness and harshness (that first, ear-splitting scream is absolutely devastating, giving the song an almost DSBM-like sense of desperation and despair) and injecting an extra dash of bleak, borderline “blackened”, atmosphere into the mix (most notably during the track’s colossal climax).
Make no mistake, this is one very impressive debut, from a band who – on the evidence presented here – already possess all the tools to go on to even bigger and better things!