Search - Adagio :: Dominate

Dominate

D. Bridglal | England | 06/18/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"After reading all these negative reviews I felt rather worried that Adagio had completely changed. Nonetheless I got this album and was pleasantly surprised. This is their third album.



Adagio are a hybrid of Neo Classical, Progressive and Symphonic Metal. The band's talent is quite remarkable (thanks to Stephan Forte who writes all of the songs), and I'm surprised they are so little known. The songs are a lot shorter than that of Sanctus Ignis and Underworld. They are still of a decent length though: the longest song is R'Lyeh The Dead (8.25), followed by The Darkitecht (6.18) and Children Of The Dead Lake (6.04). The whole album is 47 minutes long. None of the songs are long enough to impress us with the intricate piano parts (I quite miss that). However with shorter songs, the music is faster and the guitar solos are still on top form. The old vocalist has been replaced with a new Death Metal vocalist (Gus Monsanto). Surprisingly enough he has a great voice. His clean singing is much better than his death vocals in my opinion. Most Death Metal vocalists cannot sing at all. (Except Mikael Åkerfeldt from Opeth of course) Anyway why people complain about the death vocals in this album but love the last two albums are perplexing; seeing as From My Sleep To Someone Else (on the Underworld album) features some death vocals.



The album starts off with Fire Forever a shorter, more straightforward metal song. There's sprinkling of death vocals here and there. Not much don't worry. More like whispered death vocals. It has a powerful melodic riff at the 3.00 mark. The guitar work is excellent with a very classical-esque solo.



Dominate is my favourite song in the album. The bass and intense drumming in the first 40 seconds is quite overwhelming. The strings in the background add a nice touch to the darker atmosphere. There are more death vocals on this song than any other song but they just accompany the clean vocals, without overpowering the song. At the 3.48 the song shifts into a darker atmosphere with a grandiose symphony and then is followed by keyboard/guitar solo.



Terror Jungle starts with crunchy guitars mixed with pianos then erupts into a part-metal-part-symphonic intro. This has the catchiest drumming, with cymbal crashing and even double bass drumming at some points. It's very reminiscent to Symphony X. The song mixes neo-classical metal with classic metal (Like Iron Maiden etc) and even thrashy riffs here and there.



Children Of The Dead Lake starts with heavy guitars and pianos are thrown in to enhance the sound. The song mixes eerie diminished chords with `cheerful' major chords. Especially the chorus. It's very a happy `King of the World' chorus. Then the half-whispering half-singing menacing verse comes in followed by the chorus. I love the pianos in this. Though they aren't featured and are used infrequently they still sound impressive and provides something more to listen to. At the 3.14 mark the pianos take control with their own solo, and lasts 32 seconds. I've read somewhere the song may have something to do with Children Of Bodom, due to the title. Hmm...



R'Lyeh starts off with strings and pianos in a creepy tension way. You've got to give Adagio credit for being extremely atmospheric in their music. The 1.52 minutes of aura would be good soundtrack for a movie. The dissonant guitar then kicks in and the intense drumming follows. The death vocals are fused with the clean vocals in this song to some pretty heavy music. The music at the three-minute mark is quite dramatic, like serial killer music if you want details. The bass part in the chorus is pretty notable. At the 4.42 the `serial killer' music starts again followed by double bass drumming. At 6.06 in comes the subtle piano followed by a solo. This is easily the heaviest song here.



The Darkitecht probably has the most classical influenced parts, from the piano introduced to the strings. The chorus is very powerful with Gus singing his heart out. At the end of each chorus has the classical piano mixed with strings. At the 3.32 the piano plays a diminished part. It seems Adagio enjoys using the piano to darken the atmosphere. I'm pleased to say the piano is more prominent; the song is greatly enhanced by it.



Kissing The Crow is a piano/strings ballad. You really get to hear the vocalist's range here: from growling, growly singing and powerful singing in previous songs and now to soft gentle singing in this song.



Fame is ridiculously cheesy but makes a pretty good heavy metal song. Why they covered it though is beyond me. However the fact it sounds pretty good shows Adagio is a talented band. They introduce neo-classical metal, with rapid shredding to this joyful song. When I listen to it, I either admire the bands' spunk or just laugh at it. From the 3.25 mark to the end though, they invoke some heavier guitar parts, perhaps to redeem the hilarity. The bonus track Undying is very good and could easily be a normal album track. The swift fluid solos of the keyboard and guitar are majestic. There are no death vocals in this song. I like the solo around the three-minute mark.



Since I wrote an essay on all the songs I'll make a quick comment on the lyrics. The lyrics are quite poetic and unique from emotions "Hold my tears sublime my wounds, drown humanity in tear-now dominant" (Dominate); evil and wrath "From now on, your flesh belongs to my master" (R'Lyeh TheDead - creepy!); to fantasy "I am the star charmer, the spell keeper, bound to me, all the chains to reverie" (The Darkitecht); even to love "I'll be forever screaming your name, my spells will bless your name" (Kissing The Crow). Quite sundry and innovative.



This is an extremely long review but I thought I'd justify how good this album is. The songs are just catchy as hell; the compositions are intelligent and varied, with the use of keyboards and has great ambience. The guitars of Stephan Forte are as always heavy and each note he plays in a solo are crisp and articulate. Although there are less piano solos if you will, the pianos are still there, and add to the atmosphere. To me the album is simply diverse with the many genres thrown into this album. If those who haven't got the album yet are interested, go to "myspace dot com slash adagioofficial" where you can listen to Dominate and Children Of The Dead Lake. I recommend this to Progressive Metal fans (especially to fans of Symphony X), Power Metal fans and Symphonic Metal fans. Or to anyone who likes metal in general."

This is Excellent. Prog-Metal fans show your support for th

T. Reid | NJ | 11/20/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Since I liked "Archangels in Black" I decided to order their back catalog. I like them all but this album seems to be when they decided to pull in their sound and produce a more focused album. Gone are the tangent progressive parts. They still have their progressive music parts if you pay attention but they have lyrics over them or they are bridges to verses or choruses. That is what I found enjoyable. What can I say I love bands that can ACTUALLY PLAY their instruments. Keep in mind that this album is dark and moody. If you know anything about this band that should be nothing new. This is a different singer than "Archangels in Black". Gus Monsanto's voice is nothing special in this genre but I found it to be quite good. He exercised his lower range of singing with great control on this album instead of the usual high notes. Not to say he doesn't hit the high notes because he certainly does but he used his full ability and range on this album. Most of these progressive singers love to ONLY use the high range. When you sing in the low range you have to have percise vocal control so don't think he is slacking off. If you screw up in the low range it's more noticeable. He is superb with his talent. Kevin Codfert (Keyboards) is AMAZING. Just as he is on "Archangels in Black" he is here. If not better. He is a VERY creative keyboardist. This guy sounds like he is running compositions behind the guitars. I think if you just heard him, the songs would still be good. The song FAME was OK. I hate when bands do covers of old songs like this. They sound stupid in this day and age but they did a decent job. It's bearable. The only problem I had was the song Undying. It's ONLY on the Japanese release. Why do bands always do this? This song is fantastic. I had to download it to hear it. All in all I like this album slightly better than "Archangels in Black". This band is clearly one of my favorite bands. Every prog-metal fan should have this as part of their collection."

Only for those who love screamers and "boom-chick" beats...

Wayne Thomas Batson | Eldersburg, MD, USA | 12/10/2007

(1 out of 5 stars)

"As a creative artist myself, I am all too sensitive to critical reviews. I know how it feels when you've poured a ton of sweat and imagination into something and some mean-spirited critic attacks your work. So, Adagio Band members, if you read this, please understand that I think you are some of the world's most talented musicians. Your speed, synchronicity, and complexity make me want to break my own guitar over my knee. You guys have that kind of talent and hard-earned ability.



That said, I could not have been more disappointed with Dominate. I own Sanctus Ignis--and LOVE it. I shared it with fellow metal friends and raved. But everything I liked about that CD was gone in Dominate.



Dominate is a DARK CD, in presentation (IE the demonic spawn on the cover), the lyrics, the singing, and the riffs. If you're depressed and feeling hate towards the world--maybe you'll get into this. Or...maybe you'll just get more depressed. I listened to Sanctus and felt uplifted--if not by the lyrics, definetly by the soaring melody and crunchy, energizing guitars. Dominate is just dreary. I felt stained by listening to it, esp. after reading the lyrics. Yike.



The screamer vocalist is just a bad decision. Yes, there are lots of screamer band fans out there, and for those fans, Dominate may be a treat. Those who like smooth, stylish vocals will find Dominate to be cacophony to the ninth degree. Just when a song would start to get good, "Rah--growl--rah, rah!!!" and I'd cringe.



The other thing is that, as complex and fast as the songs on Dominate are, they just don't sound good. It reminds me of Van Halen 4, and DT 12 Degrees of Inner Turbulence--technically brilliant but not much fun to listen to. So many songs had that "boom-chick, boom-chick" drum beat that permeates so much speed metal. It's as if it is the only thing you can do with drums when the guitars are moving that fast. Come on, Adagio, you guys are much too talented to settle for that.



In closing, I'm very disappointed with Dominate, and indeed with Adagio. If this is the direction they're headed, I won't be listening any more."