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PRIMAL FEAR “Domination”
PRIMAL FEAR “Domination”
By Bob Burner
German power metal act PRIMAL FEAR just dropped their fifteenth album this year. I remember when they first started out and many saw them as a JUDAS PRIEST clone due to the vocal style and even musically at times as well. It took a few albums to shake that shadow and become their own thing. I started getting into them around the “Nuclear Fire” days but was never a huge fan. To me they were a band who was not breaking new ground but that isn’t always a bad thing. But there was always something missing for me with them. After a few albums I kind of moved on from the band. They were never bad but nothing that ever blew me away. They were straight up heavy metal mixed with power metal whose singer kind of had the Halford vibes but also had his own twist on it as well but most of the songs always were just kind of there. This was my issue with the band back then. So now let’s see if a decade and some change later if they have grown musically.
On the first song “The Hunter”, Ralf Scheepers kind of sounds robotic. I can’t nail it down but it almost sounds like he is singing through a filter and that is a shame since his vocals are what makes the band. The song is not what I would have picked for an opener. The chorus is catchy but the song over all lacks the punch that this album should really start off with. It seems not much has changed for the band over the years. I always call these songs the “generic song” on albums where you get a mid-tempo song with a kind of catchy chorus that you just kind of forget after listening to it. To me the opening song needs to be one that tears into you and makes you focus 100% on the album and nothing else and then look forward to what is ahead.
Sadly the second song “Destroyer” falls flat and is very forgettable and almost blends into the same tone and melody as the first song. If one had this album playing and you were doing something else and it was background music you would not know this was a new song. With 13 songs on this album maybe dropping a few would have been a good thing. There is too much the same going on with this one in tempo and pace where a song with a slower pace or faster would have really made a mark.
Now we venture into the third song on the album titled “Far Away” and this is more of what I was hoping for. This would have been a great opener for this album. This song has all that I loved back in the day with PRIMAL FEAR... great soaring vocals, catchy chorus and great hooks and a lot of build-up and power. There are a lot of great things with the vocals on this one. You get to really see the range Ralf has and I wish the early songs had this. This song packs a punch and one of the best on the album. It makes me feel like the hawk / eagle beast on the cover, full of power and ready to take on the world. Now this is a song!
We then move onto the next few songs which are not bad but just lacking in the power department and lacking that special thing to make me want to go back and re-listen. The songs are not bad but more just paint by the numbers metal. The songs all kind of bleed together and we could have done without the instrumental “Hallucinations” even though it was a few minutes long. “Eden” is the most epic song on the album clocking in at 7 minutes but still not a song that I will go back and listen to over and over. It kind of drones on and overstays its welcome but it is a change of pace from the standard style the band normally plays.
We get a few more standard style PRIMAL FEAR songs to fill out the next half of the album. There are some decent moments in these songs from the chorus of “Crossfire” to the great mix of vocals on “Scream” which help make these songs stand out from the standard fare. It is not till we get to “March Boy March” which suddenly takes band into speed metal territory. The rapid fire of the vocals and drums really makes this one stand out. This is a great bombastic blast of music which really hits hard and makes you wish more of the album was more like this. I could see this song going over amazing live and really getting the crowd going nuts.
The album ends with the song “A Tune I Won’t Forget” which is a more somber slower paced epic song which is an odd way to end out the album. It is a soulful powerful song but I think this would have been better right before “March Boy March” so you would get that great build up. I get why bands end on these types of songs but for the pacing of an album if you listen start to finish I would rather end on a high note to leave the listener wanting more.
Over all sadly this album reminds me of why I stopped buying PRIMAL FEAR albums 15 years ago. They have the right tools and skill, but there was always something lacking in pulling me in as a listener and after listening to “Domination” a few times I still was not sold. It is a shame because I really want to love this band since it has all of the elements I love, but there is just something lacking and “Domination” is a perfect example of this. I will check out whatever the band does next in hope they finally strike that lightning.
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