Album Review: Domination Campaign - A Storm of Steel
Reviewed by Dan Barnes
Jason Peppiatt, vocalist of Tasmanian Tech-Death terrors, Psycroptic, formed Domination Campaign to express his love of Old School Death Metal, releasing their debut record, Onward to Glory back in 2021. At the same time as the release of that record, album number two, A Storm of Steel was being put together and the mother band was issuing their own Divine Council album in 2022.
Handling the vocals, guitars and bass himself, Jason recruited Psycroptic’s long-standing guitarist, Joel Haley, to reinforce the line, covering the percussion, as well as the recording, mixing and mastering; it was a formula that served them well in 2021, so has been repeated here.
Eschewing the technical elements of the day-job, Jason and Joel have once again assembled a crack unit of eight pummelling and uncompromising death metal tunes that, while retaining the Nineties feel of the first album, also incorporates some increasingly melodic elements into the fray, in the form of harmonised guitars, without sacrificing the sheer brutal heaviness of the endeavour.
The field of conflict is the inspiration for A Storm of Steel and the evocation of the battlefield can be heard across the album, whether that be in the bombastic, punishing rhythms of The Iron Beast, whose introduction conjures images of ruined, windswept plains; or the waves crashing against the hulls of landing craft on D-Day.
Opening with the focused Time to Die, A Storm of Steel sets out its battle plans early on: its crunching guitars and guttural vocals show that speed is not of vital import here, resorting to a mid-tempo stomp and filthy rhythms sure to bring a nostalgic smile and joy to the hearts of all true-Death-Heads.
Both Pit of Disease and Death Landing opt for a more blitzkrieg approach to the aggression, creating vortices of musical violence, rejecting any notion of victory through negotiation and going for total annihilation.
Domination Campaign’s link to a more modern take on Death Metal was always going to rear its head and the advice of Sun Tzu taken (about warfare, rather than music) in his axioms on surprise and confusion. Winds of Death uses asynchronous drumming and fat chords to give the tracks a more contemporary feel; Storm the Lines begins slow and steady, as though we are listening to the heartbeat of a soldier waiting for the order to go over the top; when the track rips and the multi-layered vocals compete with the scorching guitars, the order has been given.
The final part of this triptych is the acceleration into the chaotic maelstrom of the Somme on 141 Days of Terror, with the slow grind being the suicidal walk across no man’s land into the bloodiest battle in human history.
A Storm of Steel is a triumphant record, but the two outstanding performances are of the aforementioned The Iron Beast, for its use of militaristic percussion and the vicious vocal variations Jason employs throughout its multi-faceted duration. Whereas D-Day combines the fear and adrenaline of waiting for the landing craft to open with the artillery exploding all around. At times the track adopts a progressive stance, at others a heavy hardcore one, but is never anything other than fully engrossing.
Jason and Joel have admirably followed up Onward to Glory and have continued 2023’s habit of putting out some top-notch Death Metal records to start the New Year. Consider the battle lines drawn.
