Artist: Omnia
Title: Earth Warrior
Genre: Pagan Folk / Earth Folk
Release Date: 25th April 2014
Label: Banshee Records
Album Review
The new OMNIA album comes with a crystal-clear message: It’s the eleventh hour for the world and it’s time to act! ‘Earth Warrior’ is the name of the new album released 25th April 2014 and it is full of battlecries, spurring on and accusations.
The Dutch band was founded 1996 by Steve Evans-van der Harten. The name OMNIA meant “Everything” in Latin and stands for the exclamation “ Omnia chaos est”, what means “Everything is Chaos”, the leitmotif of the band. Steve always was a very nature-bound and spiritual human and he transfers it to his band and the music. At the beginning, he and his former band members tried to revive Northern European Celtic and Roman music and they mainly played in big European museums. In 2002, his wife Jennifer became member of the band and OMNIA realigned towards a Neo-Celtic direction. Since that time, they call their music Pagan Folk Rock.
With ‘Earth Warrior’, the band verbalises with huge effort their concerns about the earth we live at and the rage against the unstoppably proceeding and ruthless destruction of the environment. OMNIA are known for the fact that they do not stick to their musical genre but also include influences from other musical directions into their repertoire. On ‘Earth Warrior’, they do it very extensively so that the Pagan Folk Rock feeling get the short end of the stick. The first song ‘Weltschmerz’ opens the album with a heavy piano instrumental going deeply under your skin. The title song of the album, ‘Earth Warrior’, follows in style of Reggae music while ‘Babu Bawo’ as next one presents some Celtic roots. With ‘Kokopelli’, musically we move not to Australia with the ritual sounds of the Aborigines.
One could understand the collection of various musical styles as journey through the world. From Australia we move on to America with some Country tune and ‘Crazy Man’. Particularly, there is to mention the ancient, Celtic seeming tune ‘Triceltika’, mainly living on Jenny’s strong chant. In ‘Black House’, Steve’s voice dominates alike previously Jenny’s voice did. ‘Mutant Monkey’ carries us to the jungle while the playful and brisk flute piece ‘Cernunnos’ invites you to dance. We already know the amusing song ‘Noodle The Poodle’ from the live album ‘Live on Earth’. In its studio version, it now reminds on a Southern States Country song. Following is the stomping hymn ‘Call me Satan’ being hooked up by the careful and nearly brittle sounding ‘Free Bird Fly’. The album is closed by the harp tune ‘Lament for a Blackbird’ arousing, just like the opening track, deep emotions.
Once more, ‘Earth Warrior’ is a synthesis of arts combining music, art and a meaning. Our world is fragile and needs to be respected and protected. We all are destroying it by greed, ignorance and ruthlessness. We need to stand up, wake up and finally confess to our world. Harsh words, true words… packed into a musical garment but not to be overheard. Even though Pagan and Rock is missing on this album, the message OMNIA is delivering casts a spell over anyone, also the critics.
Tracklist
01. Weltschmerz (Intro) - 2:44
02. Earth Warrior - 4:25
03. Babu Bawu - 4:30
04. Kokopelli - 4:52
05. Crazy Man - 4:09
06. Triceltika - 3:19
07. Epona - 3:29
08. Black House - 2:45
09. Mutant Monkey - 2:58
10. Cernunnos - 4:15
11. Noodle the Poodle - 3:23
12. Call Me Satan - 5:26
13. Free Bird Fly - 6:31
14. Lament for a Blackbird (Finale) - 2:29
Line-up
Steve ''Sic'' Evans-van der Harten – Vocals, various instruments
Jennifer "Jenny" Evans-van der Harten – Vocals, various instruments
Daphyd ''Crow'' Sens – Didgeridoo, Slideridoo
Rob van Barschot – Drums, Percussions
Website
http://www.worldofomnia.com / https://www.facebook.com/worldofomnia
Cover Picture
Rating
Music: 8
Sound: 8
Extras: -
Total: 8 / 10
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