U.D.O. - Dominator

Published September 03 2009

*=Staff's pick	The Bogeyman* Dominator* Black And White Infected Heavy Metal Heaven Doom Ride* Stillness Of Time Devil's Rendezvous Speed Demon* Whispers In The Dark

Genre	Heavy Metal	Udo Dirkschneider	Vocals
Tracks	10	Stefan Kaufmann	Guitar
Runningtime	45 Min.	Igor Gianola	Guitar
Label	AFM Records	Fitty Wienhold	Bass
Release	21 August 2009	Francesco Jovino	Drums
Country	Germany	-	Keyboard
Similar artists	---

For this album, Udo Dirkschneider and Stefan Kaufmann have travelled around in the north of Africa, around the area of Tunisia and Marocco, to gather influences from eastern music. They have incorporated instruments such as a sitar, different kind of lutes and fiddles. They are this time also experimenting with bluegrass music, bossanova and.... Naah... just kidding. This sounds as any U.D.O. album ever has and that is the way it should be.

Dominator partially sounds to me as a bit more darker and slower than the previous albums. It starts with the magnificent duo The Bogeyman and Dominator who are grinding on in a merciless way and this, my friends, I can assure you is heavy metal at its very best.

The album is from there on mixed with some more heavy metal-hymn like songs (Heavy Metal Heaven, Doom Ride), some speedy ones (Infected, Speed Demon) and the usual couple of slow semi-ballad songs (Stillness Of Time, Whispers In The Dark). Of course we also get a "funny" song with an unusual rhythm (Devil's Rendezvous).

Unfortunately they play it a little bit safe and soft this time so the album does not reach those initial heights again until almost at the end with the brilliant Speed Demon (a future live classic). The quality level along the way does not ever fall below "good", however. It is a nice and familiar ride with some new good riffs and some new catchy choruses, as simple as that.

The sound seems to get better and better for every album and here it is top notch. Fat and clear and it really does the dark and heavy songs justice. This is unarguably a good and satisfying album, as always, but not really up there among their best ones.

Performance	Originality	Production	Vocals	Songwriting
8,5	8	9	8,5	7

Summary
7 chalices of 10 - Tommy