Review by Gary Spiller for MPM
In rock n’ roll parlez if there’s something even more important than the all-important second album then surely it’s the all-encompassing third full-length studio release.
This is the juncture precisely where German zombie metal crew Dominum currently find themselves. Following the successes of both their late 2023 debut ‘Hey Living People’ and the follow-up, a year later, ‘The Dead Don’t Die’ (top 20 and top 10 on the German album charts respectively) both band and their record label, Napalm Records, are primed for further triumphs. A triplet of shows are sequenced to coincide with the long-player’s release, on Friday 3rd July, into the untamed realms.
Beginning with a special return to the Rockharz Festival on the day before official release along with an album release show in Wacken (on the actual releasedate) and another festival appearance at Krislinge’s Time To Rock it promises to be a special moment for band, label and fans alike.
Most fortuitously we discovered this band of horror elements, a ragtag troupe of zombies led by the undoubtable creative energies of Dr. Dead, whilst at 2024’s editionof the aforementioned Rockharz Festival. Somehow this band had slipped under our rock n’ roll radar but as we, packed up for the day, walked across the arena in the direction of our motorhome this mayhemic quadrumvirate stopped us in our tracks. Captivated by the hooks of heavy-arsed riffs and contagiously infectious choruses
we stood, in the day’s wee hours, utterly captivated.
The good doctor along with his undead renegades – guitarist Tommy Kemp, bassist Patient 0 and drummer VictorHilltop – welcomed us into the fold as we stood motionless in the Cimmerian darkness. Subsequent UK tours supporting Gloryhammer and Battle Beast completed the affirmation that Dominum is one almighty heft of thunder and lightning ripe for the metalliferous harvesting.
The overriding thing, with Dominum, that has since struck us time and time again is their knack of taking the ordinary and familiar and, with a devishly magical sleight of hand, turning it on its head and warping it into a fiendish something that, whilst retaining a smaller percentage of what had gone before, transcends into fanciful devilment and mythological creature capers. Never afraid neither of a good old fashioned cover version nor indeed a hearty collaboration Dominum are now firmly ensconced at the heart of the German metal scene with the tag ‘About to blow big’ rightfully attached. There’s three UK headline dates, with support from The Night Flight Orchestra and Edge Of Paradise, amidst a month-long European tour in the lead-up to Christmas to look forward to too.
The band’s transition from undergroundsupport to arena headliner is well and truly underway; great things await in their future with a slot at Bloodstock surely only a matter of time. After all their fellow country-folk such as Feuerschwanz and Lord of the Lost more than ably laid down the groundwork in Derbyshire last year.
If somehow, in defiance of modern medical and scientific knowledge, there are any doubts of how swiftly Dominum is ascending its trajectory then the lead single, and the album’s opening number, ‘The Circus is in Town’ should surely dispel them. Wickedly careering hither and tither Dead guides his entourage with this most aptly titled of introductory gambits. The ghoulish carnivale is most certainly back in town and are hellbent upon seeking the answers to questions such as “what if a doctor
needs to go to the doctor?” In the bittersweet tale of sickening love that is the latest single ‘Doctor Doctor’ Dead and his undead creations set about uncovering the answer. Dead comments “Here’s a confession wrapped in obsession when the one who heals everyone else can’t heal themselves anymore.” Raspingly infectious Dominum’s theatrics shine brightly throughout as they lay a heavy contagion down with a lifetime guarantee of horror-themed medicine.
With an ethereal symphonic ‘Children Of The Night’, a hellbound concoction of Powerwolf and Helloween, most ably continues the theme. Here we are barely a quarter of the way into this meteoric slab and its so very apparent that Dominum have created their very own sound, not a simple task in today’s over-cluttered market but one that this quartet have not just risen to but have fiendishly succeeded in. Rising from the crypts containing Romanian folklore ‘Nosferatu’, although there isn’t an exact
match in the tongue of that country, skips about in an atrementous delight. A man made of horrors ‘Dark Melodies’ relates via a gentler, yet as equally impactful moment that has an eerie familiarity abounding yet is tangibly its very own character; very much akin to the ingenious methodologies employed by Ghost.
Maintaining the theme of collaborations within the German / Scandinavian metal scenes the corascant galloping symphonics of titular track ‘Night is Calling’ features a gleaming guesting of new Battle Beast vocalist Marina La Torraca (Phantom Elite, Celestial Sphere, Exit Eden). It’s radiant and shimmering as hooky as heck, I defy you not to have this as an immovable earworm for a considerable time post listening. With a lupine howl the dark doth enticingly invites before scooting down a caliginous
alleyway with the skittering and scampering of ‘Jack The Ripper’. The Dominum formula is as strong here as it ever has with soaring choruses that simultaneously arc heavenwards and dive vertinigously hellbound whilst all the awhile melded with a strengthy melodic that has rockcrushing potential.
In my book you can’t beat a good cover version to shake up proceedings; one that adds a certain ‘something’ if you like. Take Anthrax’s take on Joe Jackson’s ‘Got The Time’ for instance; a thrashing projection adding to the original’s post-punk new wave classic. Following on from the band doing adaptations of Midnight Oil to The Scorpions via the unlikelyness of Billie Ellish and Dead or Alive we’re royally treated to a re-energised version of Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’. Could I possibly politely request that
from this day forth that instead of wheeling out the creaking and groaning original every Halloween could we utilise this fresh and vibrant alternative please? Anyone complying with this would make this scribe a very happy individual.
Dominum’s take isn’t a complete overhaul but their twisted and acerbic slant on the netherworlds of this track is a rewarding experience for the listener. ‘Devil’s Son’ surges with driving kinetics normally reserved for the likes of Sabaton and Orden Ogan prior to the untetheringof the alluring lustings of ‘I Don’t Drink Wine’. Replete with madcap fringing redolent of Coppelius the track’s innards are spread across the floor in glee abandonment.
This is for sure an album that reads in a chronological form and it’s most apt that the main body of the work is concluded with soaring classically infused strains of the powerage of ‘Endzeit’. Daubed with slight dashes of Rammstien hear and there it’s a madcap harem scarem finale to a stellar body of work that is sure to be amidst my favourite long-players of 2026. The baker’s dozen is wrapped up with acoustic versions of ‘Don’t Get Bitten By The Wrong Ones’ and ‘Hey Living People’; both firm
live favourites each track receive evocative reworkings.
Of note in the former is the acoustic six-stringing that wouldn’t be out of place in Richard Marx’s classic ‘Hazard’ whilst the latter, to me, takes on a higher intensity that lifts proceedings even further. The circus is in town and we’re instructed to rip it up! Roll on launch night at Rockharz Festival for Dominum have totally stole our rock n’ roll hearts away.
DOMINUM are:
Dr. Dead – Vocals
Patient 0 – Bass
Victor Hilltop – Drums
Tommy Kemp – Guitars
DOMINUM online:
WEBSITE
FACEBOOK
INSTAGRAM
TIKTOK
NAPALM RECORDS
