Epica - Omega (2021)^{Release ID: 26202}

After having to deal with two disappointing comeback albums from two of symphonic metal’s giants (Within Temptation and Nightwish) over the last couple of years, I was starting to get worried about Epica. This Dutch group has been among the most consistent over a near two decade career and it felt like we were long overdue for a followup to 2016’s The Holographic Principle.

Well here’s the thing: I am not opposed to long wait times between albums, as long as the end result is well worth the wait. And man did Epica deliver! Omega is Epica’s best album to date and does almost everything right when it comes to not only symphonic metal, but also developing the Epica sound to astronomical heights.

Now I will say this; Omega is not without its flaws. The trigger bass drum is still persistent in portions of this album, due to the albums high concept, it tends to run long, and you start to feel like Epica is running out of steam near the end of the record, even as they try to incorporate heavier death metal tendencies on “Twilight Reverie - The Hypnagogic State” and “Omega - Sovereign of the Sun Spheres”. But these are issues that have persisted not just in Epica’s music, but also throughout all of symphonic metal.

So if you can overlook the overplayed, bad trends of symphonic metal, what you will find is a splendid album. Simone Simons sounds better than ever and it’s the rest of the band that assists her immensely. I was floored by the opening three numbers: “Abyss of Time - Countdown to Singularity” through “Seal of Solomon” has excellent pacing of the guitar, bass, synth, orchestral and percussive elements, and Mark Jansen’s death metal screams are just an added bonus. The breakdown on “Abyss of Time - Countdown to Singularity” is ridiculous and hits like a Brock Lesnar F5. But it’s the ballad “Rivers” that really got to me. Simone’s transitions between conventional pop and operatic vibrato is impeccable, and the swelling instrumental is gorgeous.

The songwriting has made a huge level up by having some instantly catchy hooks whether from the guitar leads or the vocals. The further elaborations of the symphonic death metal sounds are rewarding, and they even throw in a couple of middle eastern folk touches that would fit right into an Orphaned Land record with “Seal of Solomon” and “Code of Life”. These divergences do not feel forced or cheap; they are well produced, well executed, and make up some of Omega’s top moments.

 I had heightened expectations for Omega; in fact I would say that this was likely my most anticipated early release of 2021, and did Epica come through in a big way! Symphonic metal has had a mostly lackluster handful of recent years, but no one told Epica that! This album feels fresh and original, while still maintaining the points of interest that keep fanboys of symphonic metal like myself coming back for more. This better not be Epica’s “Omega” because they still have plenty left in the tank to deliver.

The Final Bastion

Symphonic Metal and I have been having quite the rocky relationship in the past few years and, somehow, I’ve ended up in the timeline where Epica are one of the only traditionalist bands left that are still producing amazing material. It’s a strange switch-up for me, since Epica were once the major band in the genre that I liked the least. I recall trying to listen to The Divine Conspiracy years ago when I was first discovering other Symphonic Metal bands like Nightwish, Kamelot, and Avantasia and it just didn’t grab me whatsoever; not to mention the harsh vocals threw me for a loop back then. Now that the Symphonic Metal scene has settled down over the years, mostly for the worse in my opinion, Epica have been my saving grace in a desolate wasteland of disappointing albums. I was sincerely looking forward to Omega since I got a good amount of playtime out of their 2016 album The Holographic Principle, and it certainly didn’t disappoint.

Epica have always strayed more towards the slightly more extreme side of Symphonic Metal, with their guitar tone having much more edge to it, their riffs and chugs being overall more aggressive, and of course using harsh vocals as the contrast to their frontwoman. They’re far from being something like Fleshgod Apocalypse, but these slight but meaningful differences have really propelled them into a position all their own as other competitors have been fading away. As the band has been going strong through the years with minimal lineup changes, Omega feels like a culmination of experience in Symphonic Metal songwriting for them. The Divine Conspiracy and Design Your Universe have always been the staples, but they felt a bit too ambitious for their own good, with The Divine Conspiracy always being difficult for me to follow exactly what they are attempting to convey throughout the album. Omega is the first Epica album that plays like a complete package for me from front to back with almost no downtime and only one or two songs that I have issues with. While it’s not the harbinger of a new generation of Symphonic Metal or anything of the sort, it seems to have a knack for doing exactly what I always want out of an album like this.

Epica also turns the Symphonic Metal formula on its head a bit, as their frontwoman Simone Simons isn’t as prevalent throughout Omega as you’d think. She’s still the obvious focal point on a lot of sections, but there are just as many portions where she takes on the role as a background voice to the choir or a complete backseat to harsh vocalist Mark Jansen during extended sections on tracks like “Kingdom of Heaven” or “Gaia”. Not overdoing the operatic themes of Symphonic Metal seems like a misstep considering the history of the genre, but in Epica’s case it more than works out in their favor. Simons’ wonderfully varied performance helps to keep all of the dense songwriting fresh and moving forward as she swaps between her trained and normal singing voice constantly. Omega can be very vocal-focused so it’s great to hear so much tonal variety even during singular lyric lines since Simons has figured out how to use the different parts of her voice to really accent certain parts and words all while fitting into the rest of the band. “Rivers” obviously gives her the spotlight for the inescapable, slightly corny ballad piece, but I can’t even complain too much about it because it serves as a necessary break after the massive “Kingdom of Heaven”.

All the moving parts of Epica pull their weight throughout Omega though, creating some of the best Symphonic Metal tracks I’ve heard in quite some time. The heavy chug riff on the climax of “The Skeleton Key”, the choir chorus of “Seal of Solomon”, the orchestral melody of “Code of Life”, and Simons’ catchy chorus on “Twilight Reverie” are just some of the parts that I haven’t been able to get out of my head since this album dropped. The one thing I’ve learned from listening to quite a bit of mediocre Symphonic Metal is that it’s an arduous task to have all the bombastic moving parts of the genre work together in any sort of harmonious composition, and Epica seem to have found the sweet spot for Omega. There’s enough complexity in the transitions and layered melodies to add a massive amount of re-listenability all while the main themes and choruses are catchy and digestible enough to keep the listener interested. Even though the album’s overarching topic about the human interaction with life and the environment has been done to hell and back (see Nightwish’s Endless Forms Most Beautiful), Epica add their signature, more epic and aggressive edge to the topic which breathes some new life into it. Omega flows incredibly smoothly with almost nothing feeling like it’s out of place, save for the strangely blown-out synth parts on “Synergize-Manic Manifest”. Each riff and idea progresses in an extremely satisfying way, especially on the 13-minute epic “Kingdom Of Heaven”. It’s sort of strange how this song is placed directly in the middle of the album, but I suppose the back half of the album is technically two massive songs broken up by “Rivers”, since the final three songs form a suite or finale of sorts.

It might be because of the Symphonic Metal drought that I’ve found myself in for the past few years, but I think Omega is absolutely fantastic. I’ve been hooked on this album for over a week now and it’s given me the perfect balance of everything I want out of a Symphonic Metal experience. It has the riffs, the melodies, the cohesion, and the satisfying progression all pulled together into the complete package that I’ve always been looking for from Epica. While it still has the overblown bombast that inevitably comes with the territory of throwing a Metal band in amongst a full orchestra, they've seemingly cracked the code of their sound in Omega. I never thought that Epica would be the band to survive the slight downfall of operatic female-fronted Metal, but I guess crazier things have happened.