OMEGA LITHIUM
Omega Lithium are highly motivated and determined to take the world by storm. Mind you, the self-confidence of this band from Croatia is certainly justified, seeing that their second coup, "Kinetik", has these high-flyers set another unmistakable exclamation mark.
But let’s go back in time for a moment: it was in 2007 when the four young musicians, Mya Mortensen (vocals), Malice Rime (guitar), Zoltan Harpax (bass) and Thorsten Nihill (drums), met up in Croatia and decided to join forces to make their vision of dark music come true. Omega Lithium landed a recording deal with the renowned German label, Drakkar Entertainment (Nightwish, Lordi, Letzte Instanz, among others), on the strength of their debut album, "Dreams In Formaline" (2009). Their first release was produced by Victor Love (Dope Stars Inc.), caused wide-spread euphoria among the press and helped the band garner an impressive following based on their live qualities, which they proved as opening act for Subway To Sally and at renowned festivals such as the Metalcamp in Slovenia, the legendary german Wave Gotik Treffen, Romania’s Ost-Fest and Metal Female Voice Fest in Belgium, among others.
Now Omega Lithium are ready to launch "Kinetik" – an album which has a whole lot to offer. Following their constant live performances after the release of their debut, the band had little time to catch breath, so for main songwriter and band mastermind Malice Rime, his notebook came in very handy on tour to jot down his ideas and inspirations. Out of a total of 40 songs and fragments, the band filtered the essence of Omega Lithium mark 2011. The result sounds fresh, dynamic and haunting throughout. The musicians have thrown all ballast overboard, concentrating on the bare essentials: evocative, danceable songs with concise hooklines and sexy grooves. Machines were fused with rock elements, producing a harmonic whole, and as a result "Kinetik" has turned into a dance album, created with the tools of a rock band. A suitable pigeonhole still has to be invented for this kind of music, so perhaps we should create our own – how about "industrial dance rock"? But irrespective of what you call Omega Lithium’s music – tracks such as "Dance With Me," "Cut Forget," and "I Am God" sound energetic, explosive and are clearly more mass-compatible and open-minded than the densely produced material on their debut. "It’s a catchy album which you can’t listen to without banging your head or dancing," Malice Rime enthuses. The eleven tracks were produced at the Horus Sound Studio in Hanover (Helloween, HIM, Die Happy, Guano Apes, among others) by Slovania’s Rick Rubin, Zare Pak, and first-time co-producer Malice. Benjamin Schäfer (mix) and Vincent Sorg, who mastered the songs at the Principal Studio (In Extremo, Unheilig, among others) are also significantly responsible for the recording’s tight and driving sound, Rammstein’s drum technician, Ralf Rossenberg, contributing to the accomplished, superphat drum sound.
The lyrics on "Kinetik" cover a wide field. On the one hand, there are numbers which ironically deal with sex, drugs and parties ("Dance With Me"), the self-ironic, Croatian language song "Pjesma" (English: song), in which the musicians lampoon themselves, and the sexually inspired "Strip Me". On the other hand, Omega Lithium broach serious subjects: the title track, "Kinetik", is about an android who feels his own heartbeat and ends up not knowing whether he is man or machine. "Wind", on the other hand, is about the hidden secrets which we would like to block out and definitely don’t want to reveal to anybody. Musically, the band rely on a high degree of variation and tried a number of crazy ideas which have never been realised this way before on a rock album. "Strip Me", for example, features a Croatian Klapa choir, and "Colossus" presents a Slovanian choir, while an instrument called sopele – a traditional Croatian pipe which, according to Malice, creates very strange sounds – was used on "Breaking". So the almost 42-minute recording lacks neither variety, catchiness nor suspense. "We’ve set ourselves great targets and hope that this album will bring our breakthrough," the guitarist gets to the core of the matter, putting it in a nutshell: "We’ve put a lot into it and hope that it will pay off." Listening to the haunting material, there can be no doubt about that!
„Kinetik“ is the last Omega Lithium album released by Drakkar Records.
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RELEASES
Omega Lithium - Kinetik
Tracklist:
01. Colossus
02. Dance With Me
03. Strip Me
04. Time Of Change
05. Kinetik
06. Slavation Refused
07. I Am God
08. Breaking
09. Cut Forget
10. Wind
11. Pjesma
Omega Lithium - Dreams In Formaline
Tracklist:
01. Infest
02. Stigmata
03. My Haunted Self
04. Dreams In Formaline
05. Andromeda
06. Nebula
07. Snow Red
08. Hollow March
09. Factor:Misery
10. Angel's Holocaust
11. Point Blank
MULTIMEDIA
