From their Facebook page, OMNIARCH is a Progressive, Technical Death Metal band out of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Their bio reads "In the unholy, foul and wretched fires of a...man these things are corny as hell. We are five like-minded musicians whose singular goal is to create interesting, punishing, and memorable metal music." This is I believe their debut album and contains seven tracks.

"Caligula" leads us off. The Death Metal vocals go right for your jugular, and the music is firm and tight. The drummer is amazing; a lot is demanded of drummers in this genre and he delivers. The Progressive elements come from they way the band plays with the meter. "A Voracious Awakening" is closer to half the length of the previous track, and the band establishes some melody in the beginning, before the relentless attack of guitar, bass and drums. The vocals are also pretty unrelenting...some cleans here and there might help break that up a bit.

"Humanaut" bring more of the same. The band is ultra-tight but too much of a good thing can be problematic after a while. The songs start to bleed together and sound similar to one another. The vocals are delivered the exact same way in each track so far. There is some nifty lead guitar work in this song however. "Ohm Cairn" is another attacking song that goes on the offensive from the start. Some clean vocals help to break up the intensity just a bit, but overall, it's still pretty much a steam engine rolling at high speeds over a straightaway. The pause just before the four-minute mark does allow the song to breathe a bit, but it's back that thick sound pretty quick.

"Wrath of Erymanthos" establishes perhaps a bit more structure from the opening notes...a bit of something you can follow. The start and stops are done on a dime, but again the vocals can get fairly annoying this far into the album. "Pathfinder" is shorter and even more intense. I can truly appreciate the style here but as I mentioned before, it's just too much. It's so intense that you can hardly even think. The classical chord progressions are an interesting highlight here. It's clear that the band is well trained and rehearsed.

"Ursa Major" closes the album, and it's the longest song on the album, at over seven minutes in length. Short, staccato guitar parts work well in unison with the bass and drums, and the rhythm of the vocals. Some more impressive guitar work occupies the middle section of the song. The closing passage really brings some nice melody to the table, which has been missing for much of the album. Overall, I am torn by the clear level of talent that the band has, and their method of creating music. It's technical and progressive, and highly skilled, but too intense for me. This could just be a matter of personal taste, or it could be a matter of the fact that this is the band's first outing, because they can only improve from here.