Adagio - Dominate review
| Band: | Adagio |
| Album: | Dominate |
| Style: | Symphonic power metal, Progressive metal |
| Release date: | November 2005 |
01. Arcanas Tenebrae/Dominate
02. Fire Forever
03. Terror Jungle
04. Children Of The Dead Lake
05. R'Lyeh The Dead
06. The Darkitecht
07. Kissing The Crow
08. Fame [Irene Cara cover]
09. This Ending Chapter [2010 reissue bonus]
10. Kissing The Crow [unreleased version] [2010 reissue bonus]
11. Undying [Japanese bonus] [2010 reissue bonus]
12. Dominate [demo] [2010 reissue bonus]
13. Fame [Irene Cara cover] [different bridge demo version] [2010 reissue bonus]
After some changes in the band - Gus Mosanto replacing David Readman at the vocals - The Frenchmen are back with their new album entitled "Dominate."
Many people wonder if sacking David Readman was for the better (I was truly a great fan of his), I can assure you it IS! Adagio are giving us an awesome "new" sound at the vocals with this Brazilian fitting extremly well with the compisition of Stephaned Forté, taking us further into the heaviness of their sound! This new album is really continuing the Adagio tradition; a great power/prog style inspired greatly by Symphony X with great and heavy riffs as we are acustomed to hearing by the french guitar player and genius Forté.
But through the continuation Adagio put in some variations. For example the growls (performed mostly by Stephane Forté himself)... We only could hear them on the last album in the song called "From My Sleep To Someone Else" but on that one the growls are more present which adds some pure heaviness to the band's music (Adagio changing their style to some prog/death?). The voice of Gus Mosanto gives more posibilities to the composition than Readman - the Brazilian being able to reach really acute tones (a la Angra) as you can hear in the song "Fire Forever."
The album is really complete, going for ultra heavy and catchy songs like "Fire Forever" or "Terror Jungle" to great ballads like '"Kissing the Crow (where Gus Mosanto gives us some awesome stuffs showing that he truly deserves his place at the vocals) giving a really good example of the band's talent. The sound of their previous album "Underworld" is still here but brought to the next level of heaviness; the songs are even more catchy than they were in the last album! The composition is evolving on that album as the lyrics do; the darkness is still growing and growing with each Adagio album.
Then the mystery of that album, in fact the two mysteries! The song "Children of the Dead Lake": everyone must think about the famous Finnish band and the story of Bodom lake - does it refer to this??? Only the band knows...
Then the song that really stunned me (in a really good way), "Fame." Was it a joke or did the band really want to cover this song for a long time??? The result is nonetheless incredible. In my opinion it's THE song where all the people will sing along at a concert for sure!
"Dominate," a really nice title for an album that really dominates all other Adagio albums. This is truly the completion of Adagio's hard work! You'll spend great moments listening to that one and I'm sure that people who liked their previous work will enjoy this new album! "Dominate" is going to my top 20 list of favourites albums for sure!
Rating breakdown
| Performance: | 9 |
| Songwriting: | 8 |
| Originality: | 8 |
| Production: | 9 |
Written by Account deleted | 13.06.2006
Guest review disclaimer:
This is a guest review, which means it does not necessarily represent the point of view of the MS Staff.
This is a guest review, which means it does not necessarily represent the point of view of the MS Staff.
Rating:
8.5
8.5
|
Rating: 8.5 |
After that Stephan Forte fired David Redman, the first singer of the French combo Adagio, everybody, me the first, was wondering if it was possible to find a good replacement. Stephan found a young singer from Brazil, Gus Monsanto and if you still didn't know how good he could be, I will invite you to have a look quickly on "Dominate" the new album of the band to understand that we're just in front of a real masterpiece. Adagio is back, and not for nothing? Read more ›› |
Rating:
8.0
8.0
|
Rating: 8.0 |
Adagio are back with Dominate, an album that fans of their earlier albums will certainly enjoy. The band hasn't changed their blueprint at all; nine tracks all focusing on straight-ahead power metal riffing chord structures, symmetrical meters and guitar histrionics performed by none other then Stéphan Forté. The only difference on this album is the incorporation of more death metal vocals, especially on the title track where symphonic overtones are mixed in with grindcore blast beats and guttural rasping vocals. This trend continues on "Terror Jungle" at the two minute mark, turning into a song that doesn't even sound like Adagio for twenty seconds. "Terror Jungle" would be one of Dominate's more diverse tracks; it's a song that is clearly all over the place. It mixes signature Adagio orchestration with Malmsteen-influenced notation, an 80s power metal influence, and a brief pounding double-bass moment of death metal growling. "R'Lyeh the Dead" is another track on Dominate that features death metal growling, however fusing this with clean vocals. "Kissing the Crow" is the album's ballad track as well as Forté's lowest point for vocals on Dominate, seemingly trying too hard to articulate the odd lyric (although this might be denounced simply to his French accent). "Kissing the Crow" is a rather short song which mixes piano with a string accompaniment. The cover of "Fame" from Alan Parker's 1980 film Fame seems to come out of nowhere. Adagio take this once soft rock adult contemporary song and turn it into a pulsing power metal tune and adds in off-time drumming patterns in the outro. All in all Dominate is a solid album by the band, waiting to be outdone by a future epic release.. |
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