Omar Bowing – “Warrior”

Music Reviews
Jer@SBS
April 7, 2015
0

Omar Bowing – “Warrior” – Single/Video Review

Awesome! It’s always good to see people back we love to see and hear from. We reviewed Omar’s album 432 Hz a little over/under a year ago and we’ve had his video for the single “Code Love” on our show SBS Live This Week. Still grinding out intense emotions through his music, Omar Bowing and his band of experts – all with degrees in furious musical-mayhem – are back with their latest single “Warrior” and a brand-new video full of wicked band shots. And YEP – you know it – we’ve just put this latest video on the most recent episode of SBS Live This Week once again to do what we can to assist in the hype…cause personally, I dig what Omar Bowing and these final rock/metal experimentalists are up to.

But of course, you can listen to the song here or find the video embedded into this article below as well if you wanna get straight to the Omar Bowing goods…

The great instrumentation that I’ve come to expect in Omar’s music is certainly here once again. With his innovative use of the guitarviol in his songs, sound & writing – it layers the music in an excellent way. He can use it to create more standardized rock-guitar sounds…he can bring out a bow to give it a string-like feel. It’s a versatile instrument that really does require a lot of creativity when playing one; I don’t know that Omar Bowing has EVER struggled with creativity or innovation when it comes to his music.

In “Warrior” you get a great mix of what each of these all-stars bring to their musical table. You get Will Jones pounding away with precision, tone and great timing to his drum-beats. I dig the mix on them as well…they came out sounding great and left more than enough room for each member to shine through with their melodies and instrumental-chops. Martin Motnik pulls off a wicked low-rumbling bass throughout the verse, which overall has a more interesting structure than you’d assume at first and really twists into what feels like the Inception of songs. There are so many parts in this new single and strung together so well through their unified combination that it really does begin to feel like a song within a song within a song.

Ain’t nothing wrong with that if you ask me. While I suppose you can certainly consider this a little more on the progressive-side of rock/metal, it’s got more than enough hooks to bring in new-fans from just about every surrounding genre. If all these previously mentioned awesome elements brought forth from these skilful players hasn’t already convinced you, chances are lead-singer Tyson Yen will. He has certainly been consistent in everything I’ve heard from him, great tone, great rasp, great delivery. Yen seems to really understand this music of Omar Bowing and makes sure that the performances match the energy and menacing tone of the melodies with equal brooding-intensity. His ability to connect to the dramatics and theatrics of Bowing’s music are certainly a large part of what make “Warrior” an excellent representation of their sound and an exciting new single with a lot of crossover appeal.

BUT! Oh man…this guy eh? This reviewer right here? He’s ALWAYS got a but somewhere…

It’s just an observation about complicated metal like what Omar’s crew makes here…or like what we’ve seen from our own Vancouver metal-band Aeterna…it just seems like music that is difficult to move to. And by that I don’t mean us as listeners…no, chances are you’ve got these songs up loud and you’re moving all over the place or possibly even breaking stuff…no – what I mean is the bands themselves. It all requires such precision play, that say in the case of a band like Aeterna, you get that solid mix of a band that is rooted to their place in order to get everything exactly perfect, and then Ruddy, their lead-vocalist who runs around and rampages, rants and raves from the stage for those looking for something a little more dynamic. Now – I’m NOT saying that Tyson Yen ISN’T like this, or that every video put out would require him to be that way…but just looking at the guy…he seems like a pretty nice guy. And I mean that in the sense that he strikes me as possibly one of those guys that never gets excited or worked-up in any direction…like a rock you can rely on; stoic in his emotions. To see him on video here in “Warrior,” I wonder somewhat if that studio-recording session might have caught a more intensely energetic Yen…if there is one! I’m sure there must be; as it stands, through this new video for “Warrior” the mood of the music is matched by the burning determination and emotion you can visually see in his eyes as he stares directly into the camera.

All that being said, the camera movements, the shots & editing here, it’s all extremely well done and expertly arranged. The look and the feel of the band-shots come through clearly and allow you to really see how they come about creating some of this music from Omar Bowing. All in all, “Warrior” is another solid rock-tune from this band and I’m stoked to know that they’re continuing on to make their excellent music & sound find new exciting avenues. Seems to be a very creative group of guys…and like I said in the opening, we’ll always be stoked to hear more from Omar Bowing!