AlbumsJuly 2, 20245,183 views

Wormed Omegon


Omegon
1. Automaton Virtulague 2. Pareidolia Robotica 3. Protogod 4. Pleoverse Omninertia 5. Malignant Nexus 6. Virtual Teratogenesis 7. Aetheric Transdimensionalization 8. Gravitational Servo Matrix 9. Omegon
2024 Season Of Mist
Our score 8

7/2/2024

I will always have a spot in my heart for Planisphærium, the 2003 album from Spain’s Wormed. It was formative, a canon event if you will, coming at me in 2007 like a supermassive black hole when I was 18 and full-send committed to exploring extreme metal more and more. But if I’m being honest, it’s rough as hell to go back to between the rawer production, an alienating amount of technicality, and impossibly croaked vocals, but the nostalgia carries it hard for me.

Since then, Wormed have leveled up a bit, getting tighter with their writing and melodies without betraying their overwrought technical chops, and nicer, neater production that goes a long way to make more recent albums palatable. Eight years after Krighsu, arguably their best effort yet, gives us Omegon, an album that’s every bit as Wormed as can be, but a little more tucked in when compared to their earlier years, a goal and admission the band themselves make.

This is a boon nowadays. Modern problems require modern solutions and whatnot, and while Omegon still sounds like an intergalactic alien gangbang (we’ve been way past probing for decades now), it does so with finesse and atmosphere that ultimately wins me and hopefully some new fans over. It only takes two tracks for Wormed to show off what they got too. “Pareidolia Robotica” is adorn with modulated robotic vocals elocuting lyrics that reference Phillip K. Dick (“Pareidolia robotica/Devices dream of electric sheep”) and a foreboding tone that something isn’t right. It isn’t - Omegon is a concept album continuing the story of Krighsu, the last human in the known cosmos, going to war to unlock the mysteries behind the powerful substance the album is named after.

None of that is necessarily required to dig in though. A strength of being a band like Wormed is making music so execution-heavy and oppressively complicated that it’s akin to a rhythmic EMP to your squishy brain-computer. As such, the accouterments of each song help it stand out from other tech death bands, but even the meat and potatoes of the music feels fresh and deliberate. Wormed’s fingerprint is unique as hell - once you know it, you’re as loyal and receptive to it just as your phone is to your own fingerprint.

“Protogod” is an explosive frenzy of notes, but the back half is the most interesting as the veil of order shatters and we get this haunting chant of “protogod of inception” each syllable accented by rolls of drums and menacing guitars before the full weight of instrumentation melts your synapses away for a rousing outro. “Malignant Nexus” is a great interlude that’s mostly an expositional bridge between the album’s halves, but it’s ominous and dark, elevating fatal ultimatums garbled via the same robot voice as before with truly sinister and reserved guitars that melt away and detune slightly at the end.

The whole back half of Omegon makes good on the build-up with a massive setpiece of tech death with, you guessed it, more song names you’d only see in quantum physics doctorate tests or Star Trek fanfics. “Virtual Teratogenesis” has a nice melodic through line at the end that’s highly loopable. First time I heard it, I genuinely didn’t let the next track start for a good 15 minutes. It’s as celestial as they come for music this heavy with chills-inducing emotionality, showcasing what little humanity Omegon chooses to put on display. Damn, it’s good. The title track finishes the album off with arguably the most robust atmosphere and progressions yet. It’s over seven minutes long, making it the longest Wormed song they’ve put to tape that I’m aware of, a delicacy of pummel and punch that climaxes the album, as well as me. Did Krighsu win? I literally can’t tell and I have the lyric sheet. I get the feeling that the binary of victory and defeat is a little beyond a Wormed story though.

Omegon is a remarkably good album from a remarkably unhinged band, an unfaltering and incalculable stalwart of technicality, even if it’s to their detriment at times. As I mentioned earlier though, over the years and five-ish projects worth of tracks, the band has really nailed what and who they are, staying true to their roots, but always iterating in a way that makes their work highly regarded and anticipated. I hope a day never comes when I’m not giddily excited to hear a new Wormed album, nor do I wish for the elation I get after it irradiates me with transhyper gravitational tetrabeams to cease visiting me.

Bottom Line: I love this nerd-ass shit. Omegon is assuredly among the best tech death of the year so far, just as any Wormed album is in any given year it’s dropped. It’s no wonder these albums take so long to make - they require Matrix-level devotion and calculation to get exactly right and while they aren’t perfect, what equation or scientific method is? The point is the process, the feeling of it all, the jaw-dropping exuberance, and Wormed, have all that in spades.

 


6 comments

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anonymous 187 days ago

Wormed rules. This albums gonna kick ass. But you suck you jackass

anonymous 187 days ago

Yes Oregon sucks, we know. Certain parts of it at least

anonymous 187 days ago

Still not better than Zulu, which received a 9.

Zortslob 186 days ago

Imagine writing an album for over ten years and still getting a lower rating than Zulu

anonymous 185 days ago

wow they really phoned it on this one, sounds like every other wormed release in existence

anonymous 184 days ago

Hey D Rod why don't you up the shut