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Omnia Opera — Omnia Opera
(Delerium DELEC CD 011, 1993, CD)

by Peter Thelen, Published 1994-05-01

Omnia Opera Cover art From the first few power chords at the beginning of "Space Bastard" it becomes fairly obvious that this British six-piece have Hawkwind as one of their major influences, yet they seem to be capable of taking that hard-edged space rock into the fertile neo-psychedelic territory of the Ozrics. This 74 minute CD (also available as a double LP) is a powerful enough musically, a would-be tour-de-force that could deliver on many levels, yet the one thing that holds it back are the simplistic dual-vocals that rarely do much more than follow the guitar chords in mindless unison. When the vocals ease up, Omnia Opera become a swirling hallucinogenic stew of turbulent energy, with occasional rave-up flights into pure psychedelic madness. Despite its weaknesses, the album does succeed if taken as purely psychedelic fare. Guitarist Q (yes, that's the name in the credits) delivers that high-speed fire and pure magical gliss that harkens back to the early days of Amon Düül II. When bass and drums find the right groove and flow with it (as on "The Awakening" or "Each Day"), the effect is very potent. Keyboards tend to be used (as with Ozrics) more as an ever-present sound-effects generator than as an integral component of the musical base. All taken, the negatives here tend to cancel much of the positives, with the net result being an album that never quite delivers its potential.

Filed under: New releases, Issue 3, 1993 releases

Related artist(s): Omnia Opera

 

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