Third Island – Omelas (Review)

This is the debut album from Irish post-metal/doom band Third Island.

After the initial promise of Third Island’s debut EP Dusk, the band have now returned with a full 48 minutes of material. This is direct, forthright post-metal, which also takes in influences from doom, sludge, post-rock, and progressive metal.

Third Island have combined these various influences into a style that sometimes sits a little outside of what a lot of bands of this ilk are doing. It’s not wildly dissimilar, of course, but the heavier sludge aspects of the music mix with an almost grunge sensibility to produce songs that are somewhat rougher, rockier, and more riff-focused than the music of your average post-metal group.

The album is not without its more nuanced and atmospheric moments, of course, but I do think it’s good that the band have chosen a more individual route through the crowded musical landscape by adopting a more direct, energetic, and sludge rock influenced route, at least for the most part – as the album progresses the songs get longer and tend to bring in more doom/post-metal influences.

Part of this overall feeling of differentiation is due to the vocals too, as the singer uses a range of styles across the music, rather than just mainly one or two. It’s typically variations of clean singing with some shouting mixed in, but his style is such that his performance is reminiscent of a sludge rock band in some ways. Like the music itself, his voice is quite rough-and-ready, but not without its appeal.

Omelas is a concept album, and Third Island have done well with this on their debut album. I like that the band effectively combine a few different influences to produce something of their own, and their rockier focus on this release should be suitable for fans of Mastodon, Red Fang, and Black Tusk as much as Neurosis, Isis, and Cult of Luna.

Check it out and see what you think.