Van Records, black 180g vinyl, fullcolored gatefold jacket (flooded black inside), booklet, poster, THE OMEGA SWARM, an atmospheric death metal group from Germany, started in 2022, very humble, very secluded. T., renowned from crafting four fabulous albums to date with Sulphur Aeon, did not have a fully fledged live act in mind when composing early demos and shaping the skeleton of his – at that time – nameless new creature. A true creator at heart, T. embraces the meticulous work on riffs, tones, sounds, the adventurous spirit of building and realizing ideas, experimenting with his much beloved set of guitars and synths to produce astonishing vibes and songs that are meaningful yet extreme, melodic yet harsh and mount in THE OMEGA SWARM’s debut album, a record, a testimony dedicated to the essence of art itself. As down-to-earth T. is, he is not the type of person to stick with one sonic formula, he looks out for ‘something more’, ‘something different’. Having finalized what Sulphur Aeon wanted to express for the time being on 2023’s monumental “Seven Crowns and Seven Seals”, THE OMEGA SWARM are his main focus right now, and the band’s line-up completed by vocalist Christian Schettler (known from his work in label mates Wound) and drummer Max Scheefeldt (ex Misanthrope Monarch), gels perfectly. Musically, THE OMEGA SWARM were spawned from T.’s experiments with rhythmic patterns, layers of synths, elaborate leads and slightly more technical riffing structures. Probably, the only obvious parallels to Sulphur Aeon are an emphasis on a dense, captivating atmosphere, epic elements, and an overarching darkness as well as realizing after completing their first recordings that also THE OMEGA SWARM bear the quality to be more than just a ‘bedroom project’. Recorded at Feire Records and s/w records studios, mixed and produced by longterm partner Simon Werner, V. Santura (Triptykon, Dark Fortress) got tapped for mastering and provided the final polish for “Crimson Demise”, an album proudly and effortlessly transgressing death and black metal and rounded off by a stellar vocal performance that sees Chris reach a similar range of growls, screams, and clean parts as Peter Tägtgren in his prime. Conceptually, the group abandons eldritch Lovecraftian horrors in favour of straight-forward apocalyptic themes. No matter if it is a virus, vicious bacteria, mad dictators, climate change, religious and political ideologies, corrupted technology, terrorism or war, mankind has marked itself for extinction – in shiny neon colours to make even an alien species galaxies away see what fools we truly are. “Humanity cannot agree on a common truth, let alone a strategy for solving its manifold problems”, Chris explains, “and thus does not form a unity at all. The only common denominator that unites us all is our destructiveness, which could jeopardize man’s entire existence eventually. Utopia has been replaced by dystopian scenarios. Which forms of negative human behaviour currently affects ourselves and society and ultimately leads into a future end time is part of the lyrical concept of THE OMEGA SWARM.” But do not be afraid just yet, before the doomsday clock tolls for the last time, you shall be granted the pleasure to experience a diverse, intense and mesmerizing piece of metal this newly formed trio is more than willing to take from bedroom to stage.
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