Producers: James Michael, Oscar Dronjak, Pontus Norgren
Listen to prepared catalogue previews below. Personal ratings and library actions are not available in this preview.
Log in to add listenings and curate your tops.
AllMusic · 3.0 / 5 · · 2026-07-26 17:32:08
Ozzy Osbourne · 3.5 / 5 · · 2025-07-26 11:39:51
MiskamNiretet · 3.5 / 5 · · 2024-06-24 16:44:13
EveryDisc · 3.5 / 5 · · 2019-08-20 06:22:17
As we remember, the gods of true metal themselves, Manowar, once hinted that only they and Hammerfall are true. This statement always surprised me - the Swedes look like typical power metalers and sound the same (even if they are first echelon), and to me, power metal does not mesh with true at all. But oh well, that is just by the way. Either way, their new 11th album Dominion was released, and if one is to listen to popular old-school metal, it is stupid to miss a novelty from living classics. The main thing one wants from Hammerfall is an absence of experimentation with sound. In this they are just close to Manowar - from such bands one expects canonicity and correctness, perhaps with such an approach they are indeed true. To be honest, even the band's minimal experiments with style did not please even the most loyal fans, and popularity immediately began to roll down. On Dominion from the very first track - the stubborn, catchy anthem Never forgive never forget - it is clear, we have typical Scandinavian power metal with divine mixing, adorned with periodic light delay. If we go through the further tracklist, let us highlight at different poles: The beautiful Dominion with chorals, The epically fast One against the world, The disgustingly primitive anthem Sweden rock (After this, one does not even want to listen to metal), The ballad Second to one, for which Hammerfall is always strong, but with an under-stretched chorus after a cool bridge, and it terribly copies Second to none from the previous longplay, The best high-drive song on the album Scars of a generation, Dead by dawn like a punch of a fist And the inspired, but again slightly unfinished Bloodline. If the previous record Built to last was a sort of comeback after several not-so-successful opuses, then Dominion is a normal high-quality power album, where there is everything from pointless anthems to truly powerful inspiring rockers. I would have liked more worthwhile ballads, but here the issue is precisely that Hammerfall usually does them well. This is not critical for either the genre or the record.
Independent review