Omnia - Crone of War (2004)

Every once in awhile, I occasionally drift off and start wondering what life must have been like centuries ago for my long lost ancestors. I can easily admit for years I’ve often wished I could have been born a long time ago. Maybe this seems kind of weird but I’ve always had this strange attachment to ancient times and always had this obsession with medieval times, ancient cultures, their beliefs and their way of life. Maybe this is just due to my excessive viewing of movies set in that time (Braveheart and such), my interest in history or perhaps reading fantasy books and stuff has had some influence on me as well. Whatever the case may be I’ve always felt that I somehow didn’t belong to this current world. As if there’s some ancient person inside of me that is screaming to be awoken, but for some reason just wont fully awake.

Omnia began in 1996 and at one point in time was described as a 'fourteen-person Iron-age Celtic music and combat spectacle group,' which performed at Pagan festivals around Europe. However in time the band was reduced to just two members and in 2002 Steve’s wife Jenny joined the group adding her harp skills. The music of Omnia is a bit hard to fully describe but one thing for sure is that it has this feeling of ancient timelessness to it or just refer to the bands own description, which they call, Neo-Celtic Pagan Folk. Almost like something you’d expect some ancient people to perform around a roaring fire late at night, with lots of dancing, close friends and family singing together and probably a good amount of alcohol as well. I still remember back in 2004 when the kind folks in this band gave me their album I felt that ancient spirit within me awakening a bit more and although I haven't listened to this album much in recent years it is always nice to re-visit it now and again for that good ol' feelin'.

One of the really interesting characteristics of this band is that all of the music is performed on acoustic instruments. So that means no samples, drum machines, or synth was used at all on this album. The album uses dozens of instruments most of which were customized by the band themselves. On, ‘Crone of War’ you can expect to hear instruments like the 33-stringed harp, various drums, various whistles & flutes, bouzouki, guitars, horns, grand piano and amongst those much more. The vocals are generally kept to a minimum, but when they are used they are quite exciting. Usually they are performed in a chant type of way, but there are also some normal vocals and some weirder sounding voices & noises to be heard on this album too.

Probably my two favorite songs on this release are, ‘Morrigan’ & ‘The Bold Fenian Men.’ Morrigan has both its calm relaxing moments with just the flute present, but slowly builds up with some great vocals, fast pounding drums and enfolds into one really epic masterpiece. ‘The Bold Fenian Men’ is a traditional Irish song and it’s basically a rather straightforward folk song. On the other hand it’s quite a beautiful little song with some lovely music and great vocals from Steve present in it. Even though I’ve only talked briefly about two songs here I must admit the album, as a whole is just fantastic from start to finish.

Finally all I can say is I absolutely recommend this album to any and everyone that has any interest in Celtic/Folky type of music. Each song seems to have this ability to completely transport both your mind and body to time of long, long ago. Whence again a time I wish I could see with my own eyes (If Hollywood and books even comes close to portraying it correctly). Plus the album comes in a really beautiful digipak, with great photos and complete with lyrics and descriptions for each of the songs. And not to forget the band also throws in a little humor here and there, which is totally cool in my opinion.

Looking back to 2004 I don't think Omnia was an especially popular band but through their flashy live performances plus several albums since this one it seems they've become quite the well known little band in Europe. I've quite regrettably only heard a few random songs from these other releases, which I might just have to remedy soon since I'm sure they are just as stunning as this early release.

So if you lust for the old times to return or just want to hear some extremely talented and extremely unique music, than I would suggest hearing, ‘Crone of War’ or any of the bands other albums, which I'll just assume are great too.