Domination Campaign is the brainchild of Psycroptic frontman Jason Peppiatt, and he is joined by Psycroptic bandmate, Joe Haley, making this 50% of the Tasmanian Technical Death Metal giants working on a musical venture which exists to act as a nod to the Old School Death Metal sound. Where it differs from the OSDM sound is in its excellent mixing and engineering quality, but outside of that, this two-man side project of arguably one of the greatest Technical Death Metal bands of the past 25 years is here to take no prisoners in their follow up to the 2021 release ‘Onward To Glory’. With the primary themes of their material being about war, Domination Campaign put an emphasis on the horrors and bleakness of the matter as opposed to feats of courage and heroic acts which some bands take when tackling this subject. So ready up, steel yourself and prepare for the attack.

“Time To Die” opens the album and if you didn’t know that Domination Campaign were inspired by the Old School Death Metal approach, then the bludgeoning riff attack will quickly rectify that knowledge. Peppiatt, who also handles guitar and bass duties for this project, pulls no punches with the simple and highly effective approach of solid paced, thundering riffs and blistering vocal work. Haley, normally the guitarist in Psycroptic handles the drum duties and his work provides a solid platform, barrages of double kick with solid snare work and thundering cymbal crashes and all together, you can hear the influence of the early 90s Death Metal in their sound.

The rest of the tracks follow on in a similar vein; heavy low end with some great chugging, commanding vocal roaring and some pretty tight drumming. You have the odd guitar harmonies to add some melodic flavouring to tracks along with the pedal tone riffs and buzzing flurries of activity. There isn’t much in the way of stunt guitar or theatrics, just the lone guitar solo on the final track of the album “Death Landing”, which also happens to be an intense track which shows some glimpses of what may potentially come from future works from Domination Campaign.

On the flip side, the similarity of most tracks holds this release back a little. The bludgeoning approach is fine and it sounds tight as hell, but it’s fairly predictable in places and it is possible to just zone out during the album and before you know it, 34 minutes have passed and all you can hear is silence in your headphones.

At 34 minutes in length, it’s the right length to get through in one sitting and it does keep you engaged for the most part but as mentioned above, it can be easy to just zone out in parts. With a nod to the old school but brought forward with impressive modern production and mixing, Domination Campaign is a project with a lot of potential. Angry and hard hitting, it’s raw but refined. Intense and heavy with a flourish of explosiveness in the final tracks, “A Storm Of Steel” is a solid release and a good way to open up 2024’s campaign of metal.

(7/10 Fraggle)

https://www.facebook.com/dominationcampaign

https://dominationcampaign.bandcamp.com/album/a-storm-of-steel