Pelkonen's much more deep style helped push the direction of the music OG was putting out toward what it would end up being for most of their ensuing albums: deep, introspective pieces about human individuality, layered by very melodic and powerful riffs and beats, starting with Stuck Here On Snake's Way, and solidifying with The Redshift a year later. Their big break came from their next album, New World Shadows, which was released to rave reviews and was considered a modern classic for the genre. Their most recent release is Origin, which continues most of the themes and sound stylings of New World Shadows.
Omnium Gatherum lyrically has taken an interesting inversion to the typical lyrics one might expect from a Death metal band. In fact, the band's lyrical content is actually quite optimistic, especially since the departure of Filppu. Most of their songs deal with emotion and how we deal with it, or how we react to crossroads in life.
They're also known for sharing a lead guitarist with Insomnium, and both fanbases are close enough that they sometimes call each other "Insomnium Gatherum".
Current Lineup:
- Markus Vanhala – guitars (1996–present)
- Aapo Koivisto - keyboards, backing vocals (2005-present)
- Jukka Pelkonen – lead vocals (2006–present)
- Mikko Kivistö – bass (2020–present)
- Atte Pesonen – drums (2021–present)
- Nick Cordle - guitars (2022-present)
Main Discography:
- Spirits and August Light (2003)
- Years in Waste (2004)
- Stuck Here on Snake's Way (2007)
- The Redshift (2008)
- New World Shadows (2011)
- Beyond (2013)
- Grey Heavens (2016)
- The Burning Cold (2018)
- Origin (2021)
This band contains examples of the following tropes:
- Ascended Meme: For the cancelled Omnium Gatherum/Insomnium tour in 2020, both bands sold shirts with the "Insomnium Gatherum" brand on it.
- Bilingual Bonus: The band's name in Latin, but it makes more sense when you find out that the band's lyrics are usually quite accepting of people's personal demons and their personal struggles, of which the band attempts to capture in it's music.
- Book Ends: The album Beyond begins and ends with the main riff of the intro song "Luoto", though the outro is in the end of the last song.
- Cover Version: Hanger 18 from Megadeth on Spirits in August Light.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: Spirits and August Light and Years in Waste. Not that they're bad albums, but musically they are primitive compared to pretty much every album after them since Jukka's taking lead.
- Epic Rocking: Usually their albums end on the longest song in the running time, the albums New World Shadows and Beyond especially.
- Gratuitous Latin: The band's name in Latin means "A gathering of everything". Which doesn't exactly infer any particular person, intangible, or object. It's literally just a gathering of anything and everything.
- Home Sweet Home: Many of their lyrics delve into this and The Homeward Journey as metaphors for reaching emotional stability.
- I Am the Band: Markus Vanhala
- I Just Want to Be Special: Encouraged in at least one song since The Redshift, but notably from that album "Distant Light Highway" examines the feeling.
- Lyrical Dissonance: The kings of it in Melodeath; While most of their songs are fairly hard hitting and seem sort of sad or emotional, all of their lyrics from The Redshift and after are actually quite positive and uplifting.
- Lighter and Softer: Beyond is this for New World Shadows and The Redshift. The band acknowledges that they made the album more melodic but were careful to not let Pelkonen's vocals be brought down by the choice.
- New Sound Album: The shift isn't apparent, but Stuck Here on Snake's Way added more progressive and melodic elements that were added to with each album afterwards, giving them a much "fuller" sound.
- Soprano and Gravel: Most of the time Jukka's death growls are VERY prominent, occasionally the other band members are called in to sing backup vocals. Frontiers has a great example of this.
- What Beautiful Eyes!: "Greeneyes" from The Redshift.
- You Are Better Than You Think You Are: A surprising number of their songs describe, or just outright ask the listener to get past outside criticism, look inward, and discover who they are and how they're important.
