ALBUM REVIEW: Omen X – Turmion Kätilöt
It’s always interesting encountering a band for the first time when they are already a few albums deep into their career. There is plenty to listen back on, get a grip of where they started and where you think they might head next. While TURMION KÄTILÖT may not be a household name here, despite their now 20 years together, it’s certainly always worth giving such stalwarts a proper try.
The production on their latest album Omen X is absolutely top notch. Whether it’s their more EBM side coming out as happens quite often throughout the album, they certainly have a hard nod towards their more industrial metal side as the main body of this work. The EBM side is most prevalent on opener Totuus – which almost starts out as happy hardcore – while lead single Kuolettavia Vammoja glances alongside an almost gothic edge in its approach.
It does feel that a lot of the impact might be lost on you for not understanding the lyrics, as they are, obviously, not understandable in the main to non-native speakers, which is actually quite a shame, as musically it’s quite enjoyable. The third track, Vie Se Pois, is a bit of a strange one, as part of the chorus sounds very alike to RAMMSTEIN‘s hit Radio – certainly enough to throw you off track a little, at least.
There is plenty to like from each side – the vocals mesh very, very well with the music and it all sounds as polished as something that the bastard love-child of ROB ZOMBIE and KMFDM would provide, though it sadly comes back to not understanding the lyrics to take the maximum possible from the songs. Even with this, though, you can’t help but find yourself nodding along and wanting to scream along to the chorus to many of the songs… if only you can make out what the actual words are!
Overall, Omen X is a fairly easy body of work to enjoy, although whether or not you speak Finnish will definitely impact on quite how much you are possibly going to enjoy it and fully connect with the album. It works well as both chill out background music or as a gym workout soundtrack and while it might not be the first thing you throw on at a party, there is definitely a high quality of content that means you can still quite appreciate it for the good body of work that it truly is. Could they be the Finnish RAMMSTEIN and have people doing the macarena to it in a club? Possibly – the songs are certainly catchy enough – but it will be a test of time to see if they are able to move into the same market as the German industrial metal veterans.
Rating: 6/10
Omen X is out now via Nuclear Blast Records.
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