This past weekend, during coding, I opened last.fm and clicked on ‘My Recommendations’ and a short while later ‘B Minor’ from the 2001 album ‘Elm Street’ by Lanterna started playing from my speakers.

The track is captivating, its ambience, smooth and flowing — so different to many ‘guitar-based’ tracks out there, while at the same time more interesting sonically from the ‘electronic’ equivalents. It took little time after this before I visited 7Digital and bought the album in mp3 format.

The album, twelve instrumental pop-rock tracks featuring acoustic and — in general — clean electric guitars, strings and pads as well as playful basslines and up-beat drums is perfect material for those times when music needs to be subtle, yet more than just sonic wallpaper.

The music is hard to pinpoint, somewhere betweeen post-rock and shoegaze with a strong element of pop making it easy on the ears, yet at the same time more than your archetypal commercial variety.

The ‘band’ released a few more albums, since Elm Street came out. I’ll certainly be looking for them in the near future.

It was completely by accident that I stumbled upon this great EP by Welsh/British band Truckers of Husk. I was trying to find a video on YouTube when I accidentally clicked on one of the popular videos titled ‘Sleeveface‘. While the video was mildly amusing, it featured music by Truckers of Husk which led to me looking for the band, visiting their MySpace page and then on to Amazon UK and finally 7digital from where I bought and subsequently downloaded their recent EP, Physical Education EP, for £1.79 (€2.26).

Apparently increasingly popular in Wales and specifically Cardiff, the band plays a structured, yet extremely pleasing style of math rock with several elements of post rock thrown in, with a mellow sound that’s outlined by clean guitar arpeggios, edgy drumming, slap bass and cello, occasionally complemented by stylised vocals. The results are a very pleasant and intense soundscape.

You can listen to much of their work on MySpace, although I guess €2.26 is definitely worth it for the music, especially if you enjoy instrumental math rock in general.

About three months ago and just a few days after posting my review of OMNI’s Paint by Numbers album, I was contacted by the band and asked whether I could write a review of their upcoming Ghosts album. I tried to be as objective as I could in my presentation and criticism, after having listened the album several times since last Saturday, when I received it. This is my review of the new album and probably the first review of the album in general.

In the five years since the release of their first album, OMNI have undergone significant changes as a band. Vocals, once performed by Hans Twite, are now part of Chris and David. Pat Allen, their erstwhile lead guitarist seems to have left the band too, given the band member listing on MySpace (their website was down at the time of writing this review). The feel of the songs has, inevitably, changed too.

If one thing remains is the use of heavy-delay and continuous clean guitar riffs as a pad as well as the experimentation with the Warr guitar in many of the tracks and remains a main differentiating factor of the band’s music along with their varied influences. What has changed is the overall feel of the music, partly due to the considerably different vocals, the more mature composition and lyrics.

A significant variation between the music in Paint By Numbers and Ghosts is the moderate inclusion of progressive metal æsthetics of the type found in music by Dream Theater or Fates Warning in the 1990s. In particular, ‘End Game’, ‘Demon Haunted World’ and ‘Secret to My Success’ reminded me of a number of late 1990s – early 2000s progressive metal tracks.

The vocals in Ghosts are more aggressive and somewhat harsher than those in Paint By Numbers. While good, I found them detached from the feel some of the songs and the æsthetics of the band; for example, while Meridian was perfectly executed and the timbre of the voice matches the feel of the song, this is not the case in ,say, End Game. If anything, I felt that the vocals were a surprise for me and a clear departure from OMNI’s prior work, doing away wit the melancholy of Twite’s voice that shaped much of Omni’s work in the past.

The album has some excellent tracks that once again showcase OMNI’s technical prowess and varied influences. Of considerable musical interest to me were Der Bettler, a very short (1:37) melodic and atmospheric track that opens the album and introduces a musical pattern also found in Fingers Crossed, the final track of the album. Other great tracks were the excellent instrumental Out With a Wimper, Meridian, It Came Crashing Down and The Dead Sky. From listening to Ghosts, it is still evident that OMNI manages to combine a number of influences and still remain original in their sound.

I found parts of Ghosts very appealing in a way that reminded me of the reasons I originally became interested in the band. I must admit, however, that it was not what I expected as a follow-on to Paint By Numbers, five years since the latter came out. In spite of the clear evolution since 2002 and some solid tracks, I found the album often incoherent in style. While the potential is evidently still there — and my appreciation of OMNI’s music remains unabated — I feel that OMNI, perhaps in lieu of the change in the line-up, have yet to fully define their music and æsthetics.

Ghosts came out on the 25th of April 2008.

I would like to thank Chris for sending me Ghosts and asking me to write this review. I’m looking forward to more stuff by the band.

You can find OMNI online at:

OMNI Official Site
OMNI on MySpace
OMNI on Garageband

Long before MySpace became the de facto platform for music exploration, there were earlier attempts at creating the infrastructure required for people to explore, find and listen to independent music online. Two of these attempts were (and still are) Purevolume and Garageband.com.

It was on one of these two sites where I discovered OMNI in late 2002. Soliloquy, their instrumental track off their first album, Paint By Numbers, was mesmerising. Porcelain, another track from their first album was also offered online on mp3. Two good tracks were enough to me to decide to look into the band a bit further.
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Τη Παρασκευή 16 και το Σάββατο 17 Νοεμβρίου θα πραγματοποιηθεί το φεστιβάλ για τη κυκλοφορία του Ιn The Junkyard Volume 3 από τη μη-κερδοσκοπική Spinalonga Records. H τρίτη (και τελευταία) συλλογή της σειράς In The Junkyard 3 που κυκλοφόρησε τη περασμένη άνοιξη κλείνει τον πρώτο κύκλο προώθησης της ελληνικής αγγλόφωνης ροκ σκηνής από την Spinalonga. Τη συλλογή, όπως και το Ιn The Junkyard Vol. 2, μπορείτε να τη παραγγείλετε δικτυακώς καθώς και από συγκεκριμένα δισκοπωλεία στην Αθήνα και τη Θεσσαλονίκη και θα τις βρείτε και στο φεστιβάλ.

Τη πρώτη συλλογή, In The Junkyard Vol.1, η οποία έχει εξαντληθεί εδώ και αρκετό καιρό, μπορείτε να τη κατεβάσετε δωρεάν από τον δικτυακό τόπο της Spinalonga Records. Τα κομμάτια της πρώτης συλλογής είναι podsafe.

Το Φεστιβάλ θα πραγματοποιηθεί στο Rodeo Club, οδός Χέυδεν 34 στη Πλ.Βικτωρίας. Το εισητήριο έχει ορισθεί στα 5 ευρώ και όσοι παρευρευθούν και τις δύο ημέρες θα πάρουν δωρεάν τη συλλογή In The Junkyard Volume 3. Οι πόρτες ανοίγουν στις 20.00 και τις δύο ημέρες. Από το σχετικό δελτίο τύπου της Spinalonga:

Την πρώτη μέρα εμφανίζονται με την σειρά που αναφέρονται οι ελπιδοφόροι Fool in the Box με το alternative rock ήχο τους, οι Low Gravity, με το groovy τους fusion rock, οι Θεσσαλονικείς Scab Level με το indie/ska/alternative κράμα, οι ψυχεδελικοί stoner rockers the Dive σε πρώτη εμφάνιση μετά από απουσία μηνών και ως headliners η αδιαμφισβήτη ναυαρχίδα της τρίτης συλλογής Bliss και ο post-grunge stoner ήχος τους.

Την δεύτερη μέρα θα εμφανιστούν οι ανερχόμενοι indie rockers Black Circus, το δυναμικό τρίο garage-rockers the Velvoids, οι θεσσαλονικείς Sleepin Pillow με το κράμα alternative rock, ψυχεδέλιας αλλά και ανατολίτικών στοιχείων, οι Bad Mathematics που με τον indie-no wave-post punk ήχο τους έχουν αφήσει τις καλύτερες εντυπώσεις. To line-up συμπληρώνουν με το δυνάτο r’n’r’ stoner rock τους οι special guests Semen of the sun, που είναι έτοιμοι να κυκλοφορήσουν την πρώτη τους δισκογραφική δουλειά..

Περισσότερες πληροφορίες για τα συγκροτήματα και το φεστιβάλ μπορείτε να βρείτε στο www.spinalonga.net.