Impious - _Death Domination_
(Metal Blade, 2009)
by: Aly Hassab El Naby (7.5 out of 10)
Many bands, young and old, find themselves falling into patterns; putting out album after album with little to tell them apart. Sticking to your guns is something that I'll always applaud, but I usually prefer engaging albums that signify the maturity of a group of musicians over time. A band like Arsis comes to mind when mentioning similar albums, and on the other hand you have Lamb of God. Impious may give the impression of a band that's repeating itself, especially after 2007's _Holy Murder Masquerade_. It wasn't an entirely unpleasant listen, but it just lacked the energy that was so prevalent on its predecessor _Hellucinate_.But fear not fellow thrash addicts, _Death Domination_, the latest album from this Swedish group, is a welcome improvement over the previous release. It is another sample of the band's blend of thrash and death metal. It is a mix that's produced potently and efficiently by the likes of Dew-Scented and Hatesphere, and they seem to have very little competition. But give _Death Domination_ a listen before you go repeating that sentence to your friends, will you? None of the ten tracks deviate from the formula, but the total time is kept under the forty minute mark, which doesn't give you a chance to feel any redundancy. This is a band that knows when and how to end an album, and they did it on a quite brutal note this time around.I would be astonished to find a non-metal fan who took a shine to this record, because there's nothing about it that doesn't reek of sweat drenched, beer soaked raw metallic fury. None of the album's thirty-six minutes are wasted on pleasantries. Track one, "Abomination Glorified", is the perfect slap in the face that will get your anger at the appropriate level for such a death-thrashing opus. The riffing throughout the entire record is absolutely relentless, but some tracks do have some filler riffing. Fortunately, the riffs on tracks like "I Am the King", "Rostov Ripper" and "Hate Killing Project" are there to counteract the filler. You'd imagine that at such high speeds, a five minute track would drag on, but "And the Empire Shall Fall" proves that to be completely false.The lyrics on this album certainly exemplify the band's impiety as obvious on tracks like the previously praised "Abomination Glorified" and the album's door slammer "Irreligious State of War". You may not be able to identify Martin Ã…kesson's vocabulary too easily though, and that's probably the only problem with this record's production. The drums sound great, and considering the amount of blasting and drum rolls featured here, that's no easy task. The bass is a little low in the mix, but it does its supporting role quite deftly. I find it impossible to stay put while listening to this album and quite honestly, the quality of this thrashy offering is to be applauded now that the dust from the retro-thrash movement is unfortunately starting to settle.
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