Album Review: Dominum – Night is Calling

Album Review: Dominum – Night is Calling

Reviewed by Oli Gonzalez

The rise of Dominum has been quite spectacular in such a short space of time! The band have graced the likes of Wacken Open Air and Summer Breeze festivals, completed extensive European tours, and amassed a rather impressive fanbase in that time. All before their third album release! Impressive. Now that time has come for album number 3, “Night Is Calling”.

Now let’s keep it 100; there’s a target audience for this kind of music. Having come from the world of doom, death and black metal, I’m definitely not that! Still, it’s easy to see why the band have risen so quickly in this period. See, this isn’t music that’s designed to be taken that seriously. Take the opening track ‘The Circus is in Town’. This high tempo anthem with the pulsating bass and drums ensures that many heads and bodies will be bouncing when this is played in the live arena! This is whilst the distorted guitars and synths provide the infectious melody in what really is an instantly memorable anthem! Similar with ‘Doctor Doctor’, with an infuriatingly catchy chorus that wouldn’t look out of place at the Eurovision song contest. In fact, any song from “Night Is Calling” carries that Europop vibe, again with the blend of synth driven melodies and somewhat cheesy over the top vocal lines! Vocals by a consistent and reliable performance from Dr Dead, whether it’s softer cleans or sparingly used but fierce growls!

With the majority of the songs hitting the 3 minute mark (unlike ‘Endzeit’ coming in at nearly 5 minutes), they are all presented as short sharp bursts and easily digestible hits of dopamine. As opposed to the world of doom metal where it takes a geological age to get through the song’s intro! Dominum clearly understand their audience, and perhaps this shorter song length is a conscious decision in order to be more radio and playlist friendly. Though it’s certainly not just a scatter gun collection of songs. No, the album pacing is excellent, with faster euphoric bursts counteracted with slower calmer sections to reduce your heart rate and bring you down to earth, or entire songs in the shape of acoustic ballad ‘Don’t Get Bitten By The Wrong Ones’.

Even if I prefer a world of brutal slams and nasty KVLT shrieks, it’s easy to appreciate the work that Dominum have produced here. Dominum are clearly a band who thrive off creating that huge cheesy and over the top pantomime villain kind of theatrics. They know who they are though and stay true to their guns though.

“Night Is Calling” is a superbly crafted and produced album and demonstrates why Dominum are only going to continue in their ascendancy to the top!

For all the latest news, reviews, interviews across the heavy metal spectrum follow THE RAZORS’S EDGE on facebook, twitter and instagram.