Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
You can believe that you can hide from the shadows and the darkness all you like, but in the end it becomes easier, less exhausting to admit that being prepared for the ill-omens and the creatures that carry menace and foreboding evil is something to be proud of, that the very threat others see you that they believe is being mired in misery and gloom, is in actual fact a shield, a weapon to carry into the attack on those who see the world through lies, falseness and the rose-tinted glasses of ignorance; Ominous belief perhaps, but one that is immersed entirely and with respect to the craft in the absolute and real.
We judge at our own peril on how others deal with the darkness in their minds, the animals of depression and illness, the spectres of isolation and imposed solitude, and because we cannot understand why people cannot just be happy, to try harder to appear like ourselves, we then believe there is a shadow to them that cannot be reached, a stigma that might be infectious to the touch should we try to bring them to a lighter side of existence.
However, it is in the Ominous that brings Swedish Metal hero Daniel Brennare back to the fore and pursuing the Lake Of Tears sound, and one that is perhaps more poignant than anything the band, in which ever incarnation or roster line-up, have ever produced.
Ominous is not just a receptacle for the collection of stories by one of the great practitioners of the artform, it is the bowl into which the human spirit is poured and seen to be a moving feast, a swirling concoction of heady delights, of reflective lows, and quite often, whether through design or through the hand that fate deals us, in the midst of what others might see as tragedy, but the artist sees as the canvas in which to paint truth, of capturing the menace, the malaise and the magnificent in one picture of pure thought.
The splendidly weaved narrative is passionate, crucial to the times we live in, and yet dealt with in such a way that it is with a delicate hand and persuasion of spirit that the message intended comes across. From the opening of At The Destination and onto In Gloom, via In wait And In Worries, One Without Dreams, The End Of This World and the excellent narrative entwinned in Cosmic Sailor, Daniel Brennareslips into that Lake Of Tears bare chested, resolute and determined to immerse himself in the essence if truth that is sought, and comes up with a cleansed soul, unburdened by the fear of life.
A superb album from first to last, Ominous is the reconciliation with one’s self when words need to be said, when the conversation is vitally important, and to that end Daniel Brennare has keenly followed the narrative and unresolved feelings and delivered artistic integrity of the highest fashion.
Lake of Tears release Ominous on February 19th via AFM Records.
Ian D. Hall