Dominate

Three years after the superlative Underworld Adagio released their third full length Dominate. Armed with a brand spanking new singer in Gus Monsanto, who is a world class prog/power vocalist. Gus boasts a quality mid-range and an excellent high register, in some ways he was the perfect voice for the band with a more "metal" voice, although I still prefer David Readman. Another change to the fold was a shorter album length, as well as shorter songs and the arrival of slight extreme metal influence.

I've always felt Dominate was something of a double edged sword, on the one hand the strong material here is some of the bands very best, and on the other was the fact that this just couldn't live up to Underworld no matter which way you look at it. Where this album succeeds is in its first half, a tour-de-force in prog/power. Some of this material is quite heavy, particularly "Arcanas Tenebrae/Dominate" and "Terror Jungle" which rivals Symphony X at their most punishing.

Where I feel this album fails, is in the extreme vocals which stick out like a sore thumb, and as seems to be the trend with Adagio is another top heavy album. However I felt it is more so with Dominate I very rarely bother with anything post "R'Lyeh the Dead", and that Fame cover is fucking redundant.

On the whole Dominate is a worthy purchase though, especially for fans of the band. If you were put off by the longer songs on their previous two albums this one gets straight to the point. The first 5 tracks are absolutely worth your money, but the rest can be happily missed. I feel this would have been better suited to being an EP.