Omnium Gatherum

Omnium Gatherum
Omnium Gatherum at Rockharz Open Air 2016 in Germany
Background information
Origin	Karhula, Finland
Genres	Melodic death metal
Years active	1996–present
Labels	Lifeforce Records, Century Media Records
Associated acts	Insomnium
Website	omniumgatherum.org
Members	Aapo Koivisto Erkki Silvennoinen Jukka Pelkonen Jarmo Pikka Markus Vanhala Joonas "Jope" Koto

Omnium Gatherum is a six-piece melodic death metal band from Finland, founded in the autumn of 1996. Although the band mainly follows the path of the melodic death metal genre, much of their work shows strong influences from progressive death metal, especially their later albums.

After releasing four demos, they were signed to Rage of Achilles, The debut full-length album "Spirits And August Light" was released in April 2003 via Rage Of Achilles and gave the band some attention within the underground metal community and the press.

Next in line to be was the band signing to a metal giant label Nuclear Blast in the autumn of 2004 to release the second album "Years In Waste". More technical, more progressive, more sophisticated but at the same time colder and moving away from the listener was the new recipe that was completed with themes from the wasted youth, depression and soul-loss, shamanistic metaphors leading the two-fold way back in time while the moon shone stranger than ever. It is always darkest right before the morning.

In spring 2006 an era came to an end in OG and the long-time singer Antti Filppu was replaced by Jukka Pelkonen aka J.

"Stuck Here On Snakes Way" was the debut OG album featuring J on vocals and it was released in April 2007 after a successful UK tour and a signing to Candlelight Records. "Snakes Way" is an endless road dealing with the choices in our existence and the temptation within the mind of every soul on this third planet of ours, and unfortunately so many people are stuck... The band didn't get stuck with the album and the "Snakes Way" conducted the band to do tours with Dark Tranquillity, Caliban and Entombed, spiced with a large amount of Finnish headlining gigs and the No. 31 position in the Finnish national album chart!

Omnium Gatherum's fourth album "The Redshift" was nailed and furled at Sound Supreme and SouthEastSounds Studios during the spring days of 2008 and it was mixed and mastered at Unisound Studio in Sweden by the legendary metal-mastermind Dan Swanö, who commented the album with his nice words: "I hate bands like Omnium Gatherum, they are so good it pisses me off!!! Their fine blend of melody and aggression is so good I actually thought about stealing the record and releasing it as my own :) You won´t find a better album in years." Their 2008 album The Redshift had generally positive reviews, inked band to do long European tours with Nile/Grave in 2008 and Swallow The Sun/Insomnium in 2009 and even charting in Finnish official album chart to position No. 24.

In the summer of 2008 Bassist Eerik Purdon announced that he will be leaving Omnium Gatherum, and In 2009 Toni Mäki Officially joined Omnium Gatherum as their new Bassist.