Omelas by Third Island (Post Rock/Metal, 2018)

“Omelas” is the first full length album, and third release, by Irish Post-Metal band Third Island.

This album’s concept follows the story of “The Ones Who Walk Away From The Omelas” by Ursula K. Le Guin. The story presents the ideal Utopian society, where people are certain to prosper definitely into the future, so long as they are happy not to question the methods behind their City’s success. There are some who cannot take the success of the City so simply, and who choose instead to seek out the secrets deeper within. The answers, however, are often worse than they are prepared for, and leaves the people with only two choices – to live silently with this knowledge or be exiled into the Mountains, a place from where no-one has ever returned.

Written over the course of a year, the album lyrically and musically explores the themes of the story; the joy of discovery, the pride of the city, the anger and sadness of learning the truth, and final isolation of the ultimatum. This is achieved through a meld of genres, shifting slowly through melancholic post-rock and progressive passages into oppressive, anxious doom and sludge.”