Escape to Nowhere

It sounds like a fairytale, but it is true. Believe me, my young friends: back in the eighties of the last century, it was possible to earn money with music. Incredible, isn't it? Even second tier power metal bands like Omen had the chance to get a piece of the cake. It was therefore only logical that some idiots crept put of their stinking holes and told the band members that they had to change their style. Three respectable albums and a pretty strong EP had been released so far. A lot of metal freaks thought that they had presented good music, but the idiots disagreed. "Did the band earn a lot of money with these vinyls? No? Then it can't be good music!" Irrefutable fact!

But I don't want to be too sarcastic, the eighties were a great decade. Without any kind of world wide web, the artworks had to indicate the style of an album - much more than today, they worked as an, well, omen for the content. And what do we see? Well, there is no need for a detailed description, just try to fall not in love with this beautiful women who wants to get rid of her panties. And indeed, the music follows the cover without reservation.

Omen want to win new target groups with a polished work where theatrical, dramatic and emotional sections rule. Coburn Pharr, the new lead singer, expresses the whole range of feelings and I am happy that he does not start to cry. His performance is acceptable during relatively solid tracks like the stomping "Thorn in Your Flesh", but during the entire A side, he is at risk to get lost in his own cosmos of great and kitschy emotions. Omen have never been the most furious band, but they were authentic metalheads. Now they present so much schmaltz (once again: especially the overly solemn A side drives this album into the ground) that a pretty effervescent song like "Poisoned" is not enough to push the work on an acceptable level. The main problem is that everything seems to be calculated. There is this rather soft opener with its stereotyped design and the futile Golden Earring cover hails from the second position of the track list. Non-metallic music consumers, do you hear us? The level of vehemence is significantly lower than before and the production is not really bad, but without aggressive guitars, unorthodox screams or thundering drums.

It does not make sense to go deeply into the details, because Omen sold their soul for this album. The B side seeks solidarity with the old fans and it reaches a decent level, although the closer presents a typical filler and Pharr's slightly egomaniacal performance is hard to endure. But Omen wanted to impress with the A side, where they bundled all elements of their new sound. Too bad, this idea came to nothing. Just like all the other bands with a comparable career, Flotsam, Lääz Rockit, Sacred Reich and some more, Omen's commercial success remained a chimera. Maybe the idiots had made some money before they crawled back into their still stinking holes. Hopefully not.

“…there’s no warning from the embrace to the final attack…”

And the castle walls come crashing down around Omen’s suitably-titled fourth full-lengther. Through the settling dust and amid the debris two empty thrones can be seen. It’s evident they’ve been vacated fairly recently, probably only within the last year. Their owners, or former owners, are easy to deduce.

One’s a drummer’s stool, formerly the seat of the band’s skinsman since the debut, Steve “Wiff” Wittig. During the time between Escape to Nowhere’s release and the previous year’s Nightmares ep it had been surrendered to new drummer Cam Daigneault, a guy who, incidentally, never actually played on an Omen record. Thanks to the small print we discover the featured drum tracks are pretty much Wittig’s farewell gift to Omen’s realm, which we, the fans, are loyal subjects of.

The other had been a place where one of my fave mouthpieces probably mauled mutton chops and spit wine at his serving wenches, or so it’s fun to picture. Internal struggles caused J.D. Kimball, their singer since the debut as well, to pack his saddlebags in the middle of a tour for The Curse/Nightmares and ride off into the countryside, leaving his mike stand behind to be mangled in the ensuing collapse. Somewhere on the trail Kimball and Coburn Pharr, the guy who'd take over for him, may have passed one another as simple strangers.

With these changes arose concern, uncertainty, and doubt with fans and friends alike even while guitarist/main songwriter Kenny Powell and bassist Jody Henry remained staunch guardians of Omen’s threshold. To many, however, these absences were simply too monumental to look toward hope for an all’s well.

Headed in the direction of Omen’s future, Daigneault and Pharr were bringing with them previous experience performing on and recording the sole release by L.A.’s Prisoner, ‘86’s Rip It Up. Turns out Pharr had been acquainted with both Wittig and Powell, and when Kimball stranded the band in mid-tour it would prevent the two vocalists from crossing paths on that particular dusty trail. However, if Kimball had peered into the sky some time during his travels, he may have glimpsed the plane delivering Pharr to finish the tour he abandoned. Or maybe he’d wonder why the hell he’s riding a horse.

Somewhere within this breakdown’s inner sanctum stands producer Paul O’Neill (the railway conductor of Trans-Siberian Orchestra, not the NY Yankees' old right fielder), who’s said to be responsible for the band’s ‘refocused’ style and refined sound as he rejected all of the planned material (it completely baffles me this can actually happen) for Escape to Nowhere, and since he not only produced but helped write an abundance of Savatage’s material from ‘87’s Hall of the Mountain King to ‘01’s Poets and Madmen, don’t be surprised when you hear some Savatage-like symphonic theatrics and rising grandeur (albeit of a more reserved degree), ringing bells to signify changes in Omen’s expected battle stance we’ve all grown to adore. Call him metal’s answer to Jim Steinman, I guess.

Hints of this are immediate, for “It’s Not Easy” opens the album with a dabble of piano dancing with Savatage character, however this is but a wisp of smoke compared to the freefall Accept design that strangely powers the rest of the tune, most notably its chorus. This is an anomaly that I still can’t explain away. This Savatage absorption, however, is more apparent in the title cut, pushed out through the birth canal and into infancy on cushions of delicately-strummed guitar work and fatherly-toned words, then grows to adolescence with a rebelliously-outspoken and Savatage-minded, orchestrally-structured backdrop until it refuses to adhere to family governing any longer, thereby broadening this formidable template’s shoulders until it reaches its epic adulthood. Okay, maybe the Savatage innuendo isn’t such a terrible thing after all, but alas, it’s still not Omen.

Veteran fans will experience glee with tightly-wound “Poisoned”, a quick n’ metered puncher in the vein of “Nightmares” off the same-named ep, the aforementioned title tune, and I wanna say closer “No Way Out”, but it's so middle road that I can’t even gauge how much I like it. While awkwardly triumphant “Cry for the Morning” kinda falls short of finding its personal mountain peak, the emotive undertow provided by an infuriated Pharr and the structurally-dramatic overbite of the rhythm section are reasons enough to get climbing.

“Nomad” is there fighting and admittedly gains ground little by little, but is still a tad too tenderfoot (i.e. blah) to hack its way to the front line, meanwhile “King of the Hill” only notices the battle towards the tail end of its life. Crash landing in an unneeded location, the A2 slot, is a creatively decent, yet unnecessary cover of Golden Earrings’ master money maker, “Radar Love”. Next! Meh, it’s only “Thorn in Your Flesh” which ambles like an old person coming back from a buffet.

Now, Mr. Pharr’s a capable frontman. Okay, more than capable. He can sing as well as shriek and scratch as well as soothe. If he were fronting any other group within Omen’s musical style trajectory besides Omen (and, yeah, Candlemass), he would’ve likely enjoyed less declarations blaming him for Escape to Nowhere turning out the way it did; these are problems he didn’t have while with Annihilator.

No, I haven’t written off Escape to Nowhere, and yeah I know I stand pretty much alone here. I can't say it doesn't have its moments. Okay, only about three and a half of 'em, but hey. While it doesn’t represent the Omen that took us by the gauntlet in the past, I think it coulda been worse. A lot worse. As I recall bands who released back-to-back albums that are unrecognizable as siblings, like Sabbat’s Dreamweaver and Mourning has Broken, The Gathering’s Almost a Dance and Mandylion, Celtic Frost’s Into the Pandemonium and Cold Lake, and Jaguar’s Power Games and This Time, I’m grateful Omen’s transformation isn’t as drastic as these, not that I think of this lp much at all. Even as a non-Omen endeavor I can’t see this leading anyone’s charge, though the jacket art is better than most.

Fun fact 41j: Kenny Powell can’t stand this thing.

“…how it rushes by, like the words in songs of wisdom…”

Took me forever to finally get this album. My expectations and anticipations were extremely high, being someone who really enjoyed their previous three albums, Battle Cry, Warning of Danger, and The Curse. Maybe my expectations were a bit too high as my first venture into listening to this didn't really do anything for me and it doesn't seem to change no matter how many more times I listen to it. I wonder where that woman is on the cover, nowhere? Bad pun, but it's a sign that their war-ish image from their previous efforts isn't really visible anymore and they've lost that edge they once had.

One of the biggest changes here is the replacement of vocalist J.D. Kimball (RIP) with the soon to be in Never Neverland's fame, Coburn Pharr. Although he does an excellent job at keeping the band's aggressive image, he just doesn't seem to fit as perfectly like Kimball. The similarity between the two is extremely evident, but Kimball just had something else going for him that I can't quite pinpoint here.

Despite the fact that the late '80s was a time when metal was charging towards its highest summit, especially in terms of stepping up the speed, there is nothing too fast to be found here. In fact this album may as well be Omen's slowest. It's jam-packed with mid-paced songs left and right and there's even a few signs of a groove-fest being displayed here. "Radar Love" - seriously, is this hard rock? Heck, it even sounds like glam. "Thorn in Your Flesh" is yet another example of this, being slightly more aggressive, but still something I could have seen Cinderalla put out, which is probably the last thing I'd think of with Omen.

There's too many parts throughout various songs where almost everything stops except a few guitar strings here and there and the vocals and it just gets boring. There's an overload of half-assed piano and effects here and there as well that just don't do much. Finally towards the end of this disc starting with "Poisoned", they seem to finally put in some effort, yet even then "Nomads" and "King of the Hill" puts us back at mid-paced speed that drowned the first half of this album down. "No Way Out" brings this piece to a nice end and I'm sometimes a little happy it's over. There you have it, half of this album is actually good and even those good songs are decent at best.

I've heard far worse and maybe I'm just being too critical, but I really didn't expect this at all coming from Omen. Maybe with Kimball's departure the band became too confused and their line of sight was shot or something. This barely manages to even be C-rated material for me, so I'm not really going to recommend it. Only to the big Omen fans who haven't heard it yet to get their own opinion on it, though take heed that you shouldn't go in expecting much here. If you're someone who has yet to hear Omen and wants to, don't hesitate to get their first three albums before this one as they're all actually quite awesome.