UMUR "Godfallos" is the 4th full-length studio album by Danish metal act Dominus. The album was released through Progress Records in 2000 and was the last album by the band before they disbanded in 2000-2001. Lead vocalist/guitarist Michael Poulsen would subsequently go on to form the more commercially succesful Volbeat (named after Dominus third full-length studio album "Vol.Beat" from 1997). Throughout Dominus career they continuously changed their sound, starting as a fairly brutal anti-Christian/satanic themed death metal act, then evolved to a more groove laden death´n´roll act, to what they ended up with on "Godfallos"...

...which is a thrash metal oriented groove metal style with hard rock and death metal elements. Sounds a bit confusing eh? Well it makes more sense when you listen to it, but it doesn´t erase the impression that Dominus were never a stylistic consistent act, and that their music suffered from it. It´s fair enough that artists want to experiment and try different approaches when they´ve settled on a core sound that their fans recognize and which sets them apart from other artists, but experimenting this much over the course of your first four albums, just makes your audience confused and in some cases probably frustrated.

As mentioned above describing the overall sound of "Godfallos" is slightly difficult, but take a healthy dose of late 80s Metallica (yeah Poulsen really has that Hetfield phrasing down), and mix in a lot of groove, and the occassional death´n´roll influence and growling vocal part, and you´re half way there. It´s actually not bad at all, and there are several crushingly heavy riffs and rhythms featured on the album. Some tracks are more memorable than others, but the general quality of the songwriting is pretty high.

There have been two lineup changes since "Vol.Beat (1997)" as bassist Anders Nielsen has been replaced by Franz Hellboss, and drummer Lars Hald has been replaced by Brian Andersen. The lineup changes don´t affect the quality of the music much, as Dominus are as well playing as ever. "Godfallos" features a decent and relatively powerful sound production. The guitar tone could have been a bit more powerful, but other than that the production works alright with the material. A 3.5 star (70%) rating is deserved.

UMUR "Vol.Beat" is the 3rd full-length studio album by Danish metal act Dominus. The album was released through Progress Records in November 1997. It´s the successor to "The First 9" from 1996. "Vol.Beat" features one lineup change since the predecessor as Anders Nielsen has replaced Jesper Olsen on bass. Dominus started out playing some relatively brutal death metal in their demo years and continued to play a groove oriented type of death metal on their debut full-length studio album "View to the Dim (1994)". "The First 9" further expanded the groove element of the band´s sound an toned down the death metal parts, and "Vol.Beat" further continues down that road.

In fact there´s very little on "Vol.Beat" which can be labelled death metal. The album is often tagged death´n´roll, but personally I would rather call the music on the album rock´n´roll oriented groove metal. Michael Poulsen´s vocals are pretty raw, but they are not growling type vocals and the riffs and rhythms are not in the death metal camp either. This is catchy, groovy and rock´n´roll influenced music. It´s actually not far from sounding like Poulsen´s later band Volbeat (which is named after the title of this album) in a rawer and less polished version with rough vocals instead of clean ditto. The material on the 11 track, 42:27 minutes long album are generally well written and powerful, although not all tracks stand out equally much, there´s nothing sub par feautured on the album.

"Vol.Beat" is fairly well produced and well performed too, so upon conclusion it´s a good quality release by Dominus. It can be argued that the musical development of the band should have resulted in a name change, as this basically sounds like a completely different act from the band who released "View to the Dim (1994)", but their development and change of musical style aren´t terribly different from how an artist like Gorefest evolved through the 90s. So it wasn´t completely uncommon for death metal acts to change their style radically towards a more rock´n´roll or groove oriented style in those days. Dominus is just another example of that. Overall "Vol.Beat" isn´t exactly a revelation, but it´s a solid release featuring some infectously groovy riffs and rhythms and a 3.5 star (70%) rating isn´t all wrong.

UMUR "The First 9" is the 2nd full-length studio album by Danish death metal act Dominus. The album was released through Progress Records in 1996. Dominus formed in 1991 and they were one of the more active and prolific death metal acts on the Danish underground scene of the early 90s. They released two demos and the "Sidereal Path of Colours" single in 1993 before releasing their debut full-length studio album "View to the Dim" in 1994. Today Dominus are probably mostly known for being the first child of Volbeat frontman Michael Poulsen, but the early recordings by Dominus couldn´t be much further from the rock´n´roll infused rock/metal of Volbeat. There have been two lineup changes since the release of "View to the Dim (1994)" as lead guitarist Mads Hansen has been replaced by Jens Peter Storm and drummer Jess Larsen has been replaced by Lars Hald. The remaining members of the lineup are Michael Poulsen (vocals, guitars) and Jesper Olsen (bass).

"The First 9" is a concept release. It´s in short a horror/fantasy story about a dream kingdom ruled by the Crystal Demon served by 9 demons and how the protagonist is to complete the birth of the 9 demons by sacrificing 9 people. Stylistically the music on the 10 track, 35:54 minutes long album is quite different sounding to the predominantly old school death metal style of "View to the Dim (1994)". While "View to the Dim (1994)" is mostly an old school death metal release, it also features quite a few groove metal oriented riffs and rhythms, and the groove elements are further developed upon on "The First 9". In fact the music style is a groove oriented death´n´roll style and while there are traces of old school death metal in the music, that element has been scaled back considerably. While there are differences too there are also quite a few similarities to the groove laden death metal of fellow countrymen in Illdisposed. The vocals have become a lot more intelligible and more aggressive growling and there are male clean vocals on the album too (delivered by producer Casper Munkebo). The latter vocal style only occurs occasionally and sounds slightly like Dave Mustaine (Megadeth).

The quality of the material on the album is pretty good and the songwriting is relatively memorable. Some tracks are more memorable than others, and some don´t stand out as much, but the quality is overall decent. The musicianship is solid and the two new members bring a lot to the music. Compared to "View to the Dim (1994)", the sound production on "The First 9" is also a major upgrade and the music sounds both raw, powerful, and detailed. So upon conclusion "The First 9" is a definite step up in quality from the debut, but it´s also quite the musical development and the two albums could basically have been released by two different artists. That´s how different they sound. A 3 - 3.5 star (65%) rating is warranted.

UMUR "View to the Dim" is the debut full-length studio album by Danish death metal act Dominus. The album was released through RRS in 1994. Dominus formed in 1991 and they were one of the more active and prolific death metal acts on the Danish underground scene of the early 90s. They released two demos and the "Sidereal Path of Colours" single in 1993 before releasing "View to the Dim". Today Dominus are probably mostly known for being the first child of Volbeat frontman Michael Poulsen, but "View to the Dim" couldn´t be much further from the rock´n´roll infused rock/metal of Volbeat...

...because the music on the album is old school death metal through and through. The album opens with the intro track "Symphony of the Goddess", which features samples from the Dead Calm movie (a 1989 thriller featuring Nicole Kidman, Sam Neill, and Billy Zane), before the brutality kicks in with "Tears in Black". And that´s about it, because the rest of the album pretty much sounds like that. Old school Scandinavian death metal delivered by fairly skilled musicians, featuring a decent but not very well sounding production job (the guitar tone is quite unpleasant to the ears, and there is a hollow quality to the sound, which doesn´t suit the music well), and pretty standard quality material, which doesn´t stand out much from the contemporary releases in the genre. Now I said that the material is old school death metal through and through, but it´s not completely true, because when you listen a bit more closely to the album, there´s actually a pretty strong groove influence in the music too. It´s brutal mid-paced grooves, but it´s unmistakably groove metal oriented. In that respect Dominus are slightly similar to their fellow Danish contemporaries in Konkhra.

So upon conclusion "View to the Dim" is not the most remarkable release out there, in terms of featuring an original sound, and as a consequence of the below standard production job, it not a very pleasant listening experience either, so a 2.5 star (50%) rating isn´t all wrong.