Review: Dominum, "Hey Living People"

Overview

Pitches at Napalm Records must be crazy.

Band: Our gimmick is that we're not musicians, we're actually ...

Napalm: Say no more. Here's a contract.

I joke, but pirates, werewolves, dwarves, gladiators, dinosaurs, and apparently, now zombies.

Dominum is an artsy power metal band with a zombie gimmick and an interesting sound that sets them a bit apart from the pack with flavors of Savatage, Queen and others.

What's hot?

The star of this show for me is "We All Taste the Same," which has a heavy Savatage influence. Naturally, I love it. It starts with a soft piano line before a dramatic explosion of sound. It's incredibly catchy with some nice harmonies. Dominum are at their best when they keep things quirky, like the infectious chorus of opening track "Immortalis Dominum" or the 1980s pop flavored "Better Shoot Yourself." There are plenty of hummable passages all over the album.

What's not?

When the songs are not interesting, they're really not interesting. "Half Alive" and "Frankenstein," for example, lack most of what makes the band unique and are more along the lines of standard power metal. It's also cover heavy, with three -- Dead or Alive's "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)," Midnight Oil's "Beds are Burning" and Billie Eilish's "Bad Guy." Surprisingly, the Eilish cover is by far the most interesting.

The verdict

Hey Living People is a lot of fun, if a bit inconsistent. There's a lot of promise here, especially on tracks like "We All Taste the Same." I hope they lean into that quirkiness and uniqueness in future outings.

Check out: "Immortalis Dominum," "We All Taste the Same," "Better Shoot Yourself," "The Chosen Ones"

Consider: "Danger Danger," "Hey Living People," "Cannibal Corpses," "Patient Zero," "Bad Guy"

Skip: "Frankenstein," "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)," "Half Alive," "Beds are Burning"

Get Hey Living People.