Here it is nearly the end of the first month of the second decade of the 21st century, and I'm still stumbling across last year's releases and becoming enamored of sounds from yesteryear. In this instance, it's the sound of last year, and the sound of 20 years prior to that, and the sound of 20+ years before that. The Omens are a garage band that is reviving the last garage revival of 1984, which was in turn reviving a garage sound from the mid sixties. And they are one of the best such garage rock bands currently playing that I've heard. In a word scathing. Another word, blistering. Another word, frenetic. How many words is going to take to make you sit up and take notice?
I'd like to say I've followed their career long and hard, but it would be a lie. I've followed it since I stumbled across their recent relase Send Black Flowers just around Christmas. The album evokes the sounds of the 80s garage revival with screeching vocals, swirling organs, and an overall punkiness that turns the regurgitated sixties R&B into a thrashed out sort of rock and roll. Here you will find all of the garage rock you can stand, complete with brash echoes of The Fuzztones, The Gravedigger V, and The Moorlocks. This is guitar driven garage rock the way it was meant to be. Welcome back.
