Terra Odium – Band Of The Month – August 2021

Terra Odium is a new technical heavy metal band formed by well-known musicians largely from the Norwegian metal scene. We’re delighted to announce have been voted by our DJs as Band of the Month for August.

The majority of the band is formed by two former members of Spiral Architect, singer/guitarist Øyvind Hægeland and drummer Asgeir Mickelson. They joined forces with guitarist Bollie Fredriksen (Manitou) creating the basis of a new band. They decided to invite Steve DiGiorgio of Testament to complete the line-up along with Jon Phipps (DRAGONFORCE, MOONSPELL, ANGRA, etc). to add orchestrations. As a guest, Kjetil Nordhus from Tristania contributes deep operatic voices that heighten (or deepen, perhaps) the mood of the songs.

Their debut album NE PLUS ULTRA was released in June which singer Hægeland explains “As the progressive music scene has changed over time with more keyboards, classical influences, etc, we wanted to go back to the old ways which focused more on the guitar riffs. At the same time, we tried to explore different musical landscapes, but still sounding heavy and melodic. Terra Odium is old school guitar-driven progressive metal.”

Tina Saul nominated Terra Odium this month and said “When I heard ‘Crawling’ for the first time, I instantly hit repeat, repeat and repeat again. I’m not usually a big fan of technical or progressive metal but this band blew me away, reminding me of the first time I heard Queensryche.” 

Manchester doom punk outfit Witch Fever were second place in this month’s vote and were nominated by Neil Jones who said “When this landed in my inbox I knew it was going to be my BOTM nomination. Hailing from Manchester, the post-grunge band, play an angry brand of melodic punky noise with topics of female empowerment at their heart. Ones to watch!”.

Chay Woodman put forward third place Brooklyn Alt Rockers Typhoid Rosie, saying “To me, ‘Defend Your Temple’ by New York’s Typhoid Rosie is a bounce-around-the-room feminist empowering Punk Rock anthem that kicks ass while dropping some hefty truth on the Cinderella story.” 

Expect to hear all three bands lots across TotalRock over the coming weeks and check out our previous winners for a healthy dose of new music.