Nightmare Omens

A few months ago, when I was doing the February Metal Punk challenge on Instagram I ended up posting an Omen album for one of the catagories. It had been many years since I'd listened to their The Curse record and I couldn't really tell you any songs that were on that thing, but it fit that day's challenge too well, so I used it. I exchanged a few messages with a couple different people about the record and to avoid feeling like a poser, I revisited the album. I was kind of surprised at how much I enjoyed it. This is some strong 80's American Metal, and I found myself returning to it day after day.

I'd never heard Omen's EP from '87, Nightmares, but because it is bundled with The Curse on Spotify, I couldn't help but include it into the daily playlist when listening to the album. From the start, the song Shock Treatment had me hooked. That song absolutely rages, and it gave me such a charge to uncover this long lost gem. I immediately set out to pick up the Nightmares record.

I did a bit of hand wringing over this one, as I really wanted one with the hype sticker on the front. My copy of The Curse is still in the plastic wrap and has the original hype sticker, so I kind of wanted my copy of Nightmares to match it...but finding one in good condition, without the sawcut on the cover, and at a decent price proved to be a bit more difficult than I expected. In the end I probably paid too much for this copy on eBay, but fuck it, I got what I wanted.

The six song Nightmares EP is made up of two new songs, three remixed songs from their previous albums and an AC/DC cover. Since I wasn't too familiar with the older songs, this entire EP felt new to me, and I absolutely loved it. This thing has gotten more spins than I would have expected so the price tag was worth it.