CoC : Dominance - Anthems of Ancient Splendour : Review

Dominance - _Anthems of Ancient Splendour_
(Scarlet, 1999)
by: Pedro Azevedo (8 out of 10)

Despite what the album title might lead the potential buyer to think, this isn't much of an "epic" album as far as the usual preconceptions about the usage of great keyboards and various classical instruments are concerned. In fact, despite the very reasonable keyboard intro and outro, there's nothing especially epic about _Anthems of Ancient Splendour_, as this is basically guitar-driven blackened death metal -- not that guitar-driven music can't be epic, of course, but this particular album is relatively normal. Title-induced misconceptions notwithstanding, this Italian band plays very competent and quite dynamic and varied blackened death metal and reaches some especially good moments during "Immemorial Iced Lake" and "Engraved", thanks to effective rhythms and riffs in the former and guitar work in the latter, together with a competent vocal delivery. Dominance occasionally remind me of The Elysian Fields' excellent _We, the Enlightened_ in the way they use some slight influences of black and Swedish metal in their basic death metal sound, even though the similarities don't go far (The Elysian Fields opt for a doomier and more classically influenced style, which is generally not the case here). Though I don't know what happened with the production during the second half of the track "Anthem of Ancient Splendour", the band sounds very determined throughout _AoAS_ and have succeeded in creating a good album overall.

(article published 12/8/1999)

ALBUMS
5/21/2009	Q Kalis	4.5	Dominance - Echoes of Human Decay