Review Summary: Bang your heads in "shame", and try not to become too depressed.
“Shame”, the latest album from dark and brooding Swedish hardcore punks No Omega, is definitely an album that flies by in what seems like no time at all. Sure, that is the most that one could expect from an album that is little more than thirty minutes long and consists of twelve short but snappy songs, but thankfully it works in the band’s favor, since near enough every single track is filled with emotional power, monumental heaviness and a dark atmosphere that begs to depress even the most gleeful listener.
Naturally, there’s nothing that particularly stands out on “Shame”, apart from the odd transition in pace here and there or brief moments of ambiance on ‘Utopianist’ and the quite brilliant ‘V (Control)’. But what is to be expected from an album like this? Whilst the band have only been together for a mere three years, they do seem hell-bent on producing music that is as heavy and slow as any Cult of Luna album, but the constant barrage of seemingly apocalyptic and doomy overtones on songs such as the monumental ‘Vacants’ and ‘Below’ makes No Omega’s sound a consistent one to say the least.
The vocals on here are either going to be despised or loved, depending on how you like a man passionately screaming his guts out over a thirty-minute period. Whereas the lyrical content does offer the same dark overtones as the music (Just listen to “Somewhere in the deep of my own tortured sleep” on ‘Vacants’ being screamed insanely yet emotionally and tell me you don’t feel a slight hint of depression coming on), it can’t be ignored that the vocals are going to be one of the most divisive aspects of No Omega’s sound. Unfortunately a few of the songs on “Shame” also seem as if they were meant to continue, but instead are cut short all of a sudden. ‘Woodlands Part I’, ‘Dirt hands’ and ‘Enigma’ just beg to be expanded into three or four minute songs and could well have benefited from being worked on until they were just as monumental and brilliant as ‘Vacants’ or ‘Below’.
Nonetheless, “Shame” does succeed in creating brooding atmospheres and dark overtones whilst keeping to an otherwise short but snappy formula. If No Omega continue to be consistent in this way and perhaps work on producing songs of greater lengths, it is doubtless that they will be storming Europe in years to come.
