CCVP
Forbidden was, during the late 80's and early 90's, one of those interesting thrash bands that, no matter what they did, they could not be nothing more than a shadow of the big acts: they put out enjoyable albums, but only that, nothing REALLY remarkable or groundbreaking, and that was only natural since they did nothing but emulate the style of the big acts and eventually throw a new thing or two.
Because of that, it was a great surprise when I listened to their comeback and realised that they were a completely new band: they were not comming back, they were, quite literally, borning again! Their style, wile still somehow related to their older albums, is so renewed and polished that I can say with some degree of certanty that they sound like a different band.
Starting with the differences in the instrumental section, they have finally found their style. Differently from their early era when, as I mentioned, they had a little amount of new things to put on the table due to their choice of following the style of other more accomplished bands, now Forbidden is part of the less "alternative" movement called post-thrash. Rooted on groove metal and "traditional" thrash metal, post-thrash manages to get the best of both worlds and put in one thing.
Expect to find the mid-tempo funky grooves and the sharp marauding edge riffs, many times in the same song, somerthing that I honestly think that gives the music the fantastic flavour and variety needed to keep you interested and wanting for more of it.
As for the vocals, they are also brutally changed. If you are expecting Anderson's previous style, that could be summarized as Bruce Dickson meets Tom Araya, you will be terribly disappointed. His voice has become considerably graver and he is also using more aggressive stiles of singing, such as raspy vocals, shouts and some kind of growl, all of which fit perfectly in this album.
The composition in Omega Wave is simply perfect. The band constatly throws in the song something new and interesting without being needlessly complex or too off the mark. You can relate with everything, yet every time you listen to the album you can see something new, something you didn't perceived before, what shows just how much the songs were intelligently written.
Grade and Final Thoughts:
Have you ever imagined how Meshuggah would sound if the band simply stopped doing their usual technical show and just played the damn instruments? That is how Omega Wave sounds, less technical "show-offness" and more down to business heavy metal.
This is possibly the best album of 2010, so you'd better grab it the first chance you have.