Top 10 Signs the Band Members of Ne Obliviscaris are Very Talented
Ne Obliviscaris (aka NeO for short) are an Australian extreme progressive metal band founded in 2003.
He sings and plays violin in all songs but try 'Intra Venus', a song of 2017 (there is a video clip so you can see him singing and playing the violin).
He plays both violin and piano in the song 'Painters of the Tempest, Pt. I (Wyrmholes)'.
He started playing violin at 6. He is currently a violin teacher at a private school (for living).
He was 20-21 yo when won it, and he was already a band member (he joined the band in 2005, before the competition).
At a point, I believe circa 2012, he quit a well-paid job ($150,000 a year) to focus on heavy metal. His lucrative full-time job was standing in the way of his touring commitments.
"I just resigned from a six figure career to pursue music 100%", he informed followers. "Goodbye safety net, hello freedom! Money comes and goes but opportunities don’t. Time to make some music", he said.
(Now, this is something. Moreover, the band had no money at all).
"Many people think that NeO are already doing really well financially, and everyone is making an income from touring/merch sales, when in fact none of us have been paid a cent…", he added.
Think about it: this guy is good at music, literature (lyrics are closest to this), and drawing/painting.
His harsh vocals are interesting, too: sometimes he does deep growls like in death metal but he also does shrieks of black metal style.
This song was on their debut album, Portal of I (2012). It's 11:35 minutes long.
This was the first song by them I ever heard and I was instantly hypnotized. My jaw dropped, although when I heard it, there weren't many things in metal to make my jaw drop.
Ne Obliviscaris obviously know the music theory very well and also use it very well. And they use it very creatively.
If somebody is good at flamenco guitar, he is very good.
Debut album: Portal of I (2012).
But their 2nd and 3rd albums are probably even better than the debut.
List to check out: Best Songs from Ne Obliviscaris' Debut Album Portal of I (also read the comments by cjWriter1997 in his remix).
The violin is a wooden string instrument in the violin family. It is the smallest and highest-pitched instrument in the family in regular use. In metal there are dueling solos for 2 guitars, or for guitar and keyboards - a tradition that started in Deep Purple (Ritchie Blackmore and Jon Lord dueling solos).
But dueling solos for guitar and violin is something unusual in metal. It sounds amazing in their songs though. Try the song 'Intra Venus'.
Clean and harsh vocals that take turns isn't unusual in metal - some singers can even do both vocal styles and this is impressive (Mikael Åkerfeldt, Dan Swanö, Stu Block).
But Ne Obliviscaris have 2 singers and they often do something else: clean and harsh vocalists perform duets (they sing these 2 vocal styles at the same time). It's more difficult to write these song sections because imagine a duet of Rob Halford and George 'Corpsegrinder' Fisher, singing at the same time. And this duet should sound good.
But you can say that about many metal bands, isn't this list about what Ne Obliviscaris does that is special?
How they usually write the songs?
Guitarists and violinist jam together and create riffs, sometimes in the present of the drummer. Then play them together. Then Tim, the violinist and singer, writes melodies to his vocal lines and gives melodies to Xen who writes lyrics.
Interesting thing: Tim also gives Xen syllables and Xen writes lyrics that fit the number of syllables in every section Tim has to sing. Then Xen writes his parts (harsh vocals).
Matt was just jamming and played the opening riff without intending to create something but Tim liked it and added violin, and so this masterpiece was born.
This was their most played song on Spotify as of August 2017, before their 3rd album.
Wow, he's got an amazing angelic voice.
"Little bit"haha good one Tim.
