Omni

Drawing inspiration from the twitchy art-punk of Devo, Television, and Josef K, Atlanta trio Omni distill decades of jittery pop into nervy rhythms, serrated guitars, and deadpan vocals. After sharpening their skeletal, low-fidelity blueprint across two Trouble in Mind releases, the band moved to Sub Pop for the fuller-sounding Networker in 2019. They pushed further on the punchier, vocal-centric Souvenir, a 2024 set that confirmed their wiry post-punk still carried plenty of voltage.

Longtime friends Frankie Broyles, formerly of Deerhunter, and Philip Frobos, ex-Carnivores bassist and singer, hatched the project during a lengthy, alcohol-fueled evening shortly after Broyles exited Deerhunter in late 2015. With material ready, they enlisted fellow ex-Carnivore Billy Mitchell on drums. The group then cut its debut with producer Nathaniel Higgins, another Carnivores alumnus, before Chicago’s Trouble in Mind issued Deluxe in July 2016 and sent the trio on a swift U.S. tour.

In early 2017 the band released the leftover tracks “Fever Bass” and “Thesis” as a single. Broyles soon followed with his solo EP Slow Return on Skeleton Realm. Omni reconvened for a second album, again working with Higgins inside the rural Georgia barn studio Broyles’ grandfather erected in the 1940s; Broyles added drums to his guitar duties. Trouble in Mind put out the resulting Multi-Task in September 2017.

Between road stints the musicians tracked their third album with Higgins across four sessions spanning late 2018 and early 2019, Broyles handling both drums and keyboards. They broadened the palette with jazz inflections and Tom Verlaine-style guitar slashes, then signed with Sub Pop, which released the “Delicacy” / “I Don’t Dance” single in April 2019 before issuing Networker later that year. After touring the record, the pandemic sidelined the group; Frobos used the downtime to record his solo album Vague Enough to Satisfy, released in 2021.

When Broyles and Frobos resumed Omni work, they enlisted drummer Chris Yonker, engineer Kristof Sampson, and Automatic’s Izzy Glaudini, whom the band had previously toured with. Glaudini’s vocals on three tracks, paired with Broyles’ newly foregrounded singing, lent fresh contours to the group’s taut, energetic sound on the 2024 album Souvenir.