CLOVEN HOOF - DOMINATOR (1988, Heavy Metal Records)

$

28

"From the heart of a dying sub-atomic world came mankind’s enslaver. Genetic engineers in their utopian search for the perfect organic lifeform created a hell of their own making, ruled by the DOMINATOR."

CLOVEN HOOF - DOMINATOR  (1988, Heavy Metal Records)

Label: Heavy Metal Records

Catalog #: HMR LP 113

Country of Origin: The U.K.

Record Manufactured: West Germany

Condition: PLAYED ONCE. All vinyl has been played (and taped) on high end equipment, thus the cassette bore the brunt of any "wear and tear" on a Walkman such.

This vinyl LP has a nice lyric sheet insert / band thanks list. Inspected ... vinyl is as it was when bought. I give it a 10 out 10.

Track Listing:

1. Rising Up

2. Nova Battlestar

3. Reach For The Sky

4. Warrior Of The Wasteland

5. The Invaders

6. Fugitive

7. Dominator

8. Road Of Eagles

Band Line Up:

Russ North - Lead Vocals

Andy Wood - Guitars

Lee Payne - Bass & Vocals

Jon (JB) Brown - Drums

With 1988's Dominator, Cloven Hoof stepped away from their competent, but not truly unique, form of NWOBHM and acheived perfection in USPM/heavy metal. With their third album, Cloven Hoof really started to carve out there own niche in the metal world. Every band member from the debut, with the exception of bassist, Lee Payne, had been replaced by this point, and in each case the change was an improvement. The new singer, Russ North, is one of the greatest voices in metal. The best comparison I can give is to Harry Conklin of Jag Panzer. North's voice is very deep and rich, but he also has quite a range, as showcased on songs like "Reach For the Sky." New guitarist, Andy Wood, is also marginally better than his predescesor. The riff work is excellent throughout the whole album and the solos are melodic and enjoyable. All elements of the music come together so perfectly, it should have been inconceivable that Dominator could be anything but flawless.

The music itself is heavy metal of the highest quality. There's obviously a lot of Iron Maiden and Judas Priest influence here, mixed with some USPM a la Jag Panzer. Cloven Hoof know what they are good at, and they certainly make use of it. Russ North's stellar vocals are the focal point of every song, and even though almost all of the choruses here involve simply repeating the song name four times, you cannot resist the urge to sing along. North has a marvelous range and gives the songs a very anthemic feel with his soaring melodies. The lead guitar is also a high point. The solos in "Reach For the Sky" and "Road of Eagles" are some of the most memorable I've ever heard.

Lee Payne is a very good bassist as well as an excellent song writer. For the most part, the songs are your standard verse-chorus-verse... affair, but are chocked full of plenty of excellent riffs and hooks. Lyrically, Dominator is entertaining if nothing else. It's a science fiction concept album about some kind of super being and a thousand year space war. It can get a bit lame at some points, but it's all pretty well written.

As far as the songs go, the real standouts are "Reach For the Sky" and "Road of Eagles." The former sports some very nice harmonies in the intro and a brilliantly over-the-top two part chorus that is probably the best use of North's vocals on the entire album. The latter is probably one of the greatest songs ever written. It is the album's finale and sets the scene for the final battle between the Dominator and whoever the good guys are. The song starts off with a marching style intro and explodes into the most epic choruses of all time ("Lift the banner of freedom on high/raze the empire to the ground/let arrows fly, let warnings sound/as free men we choose to die!"). It then progresses into an excellent extended instrumental section another marching part at the end. "Road of Eagles" makes use of the greatest spoken verse in the history of music. The last minute of this song is just the greatest possible way to end an album. This is what a climax is meant to be. I could rave about "Road of Eagles" forever, but the rest of the songs are of just as high quality. There is not a single low point.

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1988 ... by this time Cloven Hoof really aren't sounding nearly as classically "NWOBHM" as they used to. Dominator came out in 1988, and by then the original NWOBHM scene had pretty much played itself out. Diamond Head had already shot its load, Angel Witch's latest album was crap, Saxon's 1988 album was the worst of their career, etc. ad nauseam. Even the mighty Iron Maiden released its last good album in 1988, and the sound on Seventh Son of a Seventh Son is hardly what comes to mind when you think of NWOBHM. Most of the NWOBHM bands that survived this long were either coasting along on previous success or had been forced to adapt. Cloven Hoof was certainly one of the latter, and Dominator sounds almost like early power metal; at rare times it even reminds me of Manilla Road, with their penchant for tricking you with unusual song structures (sometimes just when a song is about to end and you think it's shown you everything, a new melody or section comes out of nowhere right before it ends, as in "Nova Battlestar"). Yes, it's that epic. The blatant dual-guitar harmonies are almost absent on this album, except for the final track, which as I mentioned before is from their 1982 album anyway. There are also these cool march bits, like in the middle of "Nova Battlestar" and at the beginning of "Road of Eagles". As for the rock elements that still shine through in most NWOBHM, they're all but gone here, and the requisite hard rock single (see "Crack the Whip" on the band's first album) is mercifully absent on Dominator.

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