They are Dommin, a Los Angeles-bred, goth-tinged rock band fronted by singer/guitarist Kristofer Dommin, who has charisma like Jim Morrison, and Mutiny Within, a fiery melodic death metal outfit out of New Jersey that is bringing prog back like it just learned Dream Theater was auditioning for an apprenticeship.
Both bands are in touch with slamming on their inner Ludwig von Bethovens, allowing lush keyboards to populate their very different musical landscapes, and both bands are armed to the teeth with thick ranks of troops that sling guitars.
Both bands wear their influences on their sleeves, but proudly, like a badge of honor, and both bands will most definitely breathe new life into their respective scenes.
Uncle Sam says it's an exciting time to be a metalhead. Dommin has the potential to be huge, peeps. And with a little more life experience, Mutiny Within is going to kill. The chops are there. A little more range in the lyrics department and these guys earn a plush seat at Iron Maiden's castle of a dining hall.
Mark my words.
Every 10 years or so, music gets fat and bloated and full of itself and falls in love with stupid decisions. It takes a Morrison or a Joe Strummer, a Kurt Cobain or Jack White to bust down the door, rattle on the heads of the narcissistic and force everyone to pay attention to the beautiful racket coming out of their conflicted psyches.
But every 20 years or so, you get a new generation of up and comers who have reached back and tugged on the dark roots of their genre. They grew up listening to the good stuff, because they had parents who had good stuff smeared all over their sticky fingers.
It takes a special kind of songwriter and frontman to reach the masses in the mainstream. To make 10 million people think a single song is singularly about them is an achievement to be reckoned with, not mocked by the small minded because some band moved too many units.
Morrison was a shaman. Strummer was a visionary. Cobain was a tortured wreck. But these artists and a few others like them revolutionized rock and made and took it down to base formula because it was for the betterment of rock 'n' roll that was suffering a bad case of critical condition.
Kris Dommin shares a lot of characteristics with the greats. He writes sad songs about heartbreak and loss and recovery from life's wretched twists and turns. The music may not be as groundbreaking as the Doors, but make no mistake: Dommin will break on through quickly.
The key is that young Kristofer wears his broken aorta as a sleeve accessory, and his sincerity makes all the difference.
"Dommin is the sound of the brokenhearted," Kris says of his haunting, practically new-romantic quartet. "We all go through tough times. We all recover. We all move on."
Coping is hoping, so even though Mr. Dommin may sound like he's ready to take a swan dive off a pier, he is actually reminding us that we all possess an emergency bungee cord inside, and rest assured we will all spring back just before kissing the pavement.
Dommin's first full-length platter lumbers out of the gate on the melancholy "My Heart Your Hands" and Dommin writhes and spits his scorn in full view. His moody voice pleads and walls of six-string razors unleash power chords in sheets.
The tune's slower, more calculating pace is the norm on this opus, but if you're going to expose your wounded blood pump in a delicate open-heart surgical procedure, it's best not to rush.
Goth influences like Bauhaus and late Depeche Mode crop up everywhere, except Dommin sounds like Depeche Mode if Depeche Mode banged its head like one Mr. Glenn Danzig.
Songs like the infectious "New" may tumble along with the snappy swing of Three Doors Down's "Kryptonite," but there are plenty of passionate fever dreams on "Dommin." Besides, songs like "New" are hard rock tunes the ladies will love to bob and weave and sway their hips to, and that makes rock dudes ecstatic.
The album's best cuts infect the middle of the whole, with songs that teeter between serene calm and raging betrayal, like "Evenfall Hollow" and "Love Is Gone," which could easily snuggle up for a waltz session with "Twilight's" Edward and Bella.
The stumbling zombie rock on "Dark Holiday" is rich with "Addams Family" keys and a sloppy-drunk time signature, and "Closure," well, let's just say it's a little dark. Morrison's spectre is most apparent when Dommin just lets his emotions rip.
Ripping has a lot to do with label mate Mutiny Within's self-titled debut release. Long on explosive musical dexterity and spider-web arrangements that are sure to stretch the muscles of the neck and massage the brain against the walls of your skull, "Mutiny Within" slams its accelerator to the firewall and screams off the showroom lot at 120 mph.
Forging the best elements of metalcore with melodic death metal and prog isn't new, but it sure sounds fresh here. The keyboards are key. Bands like Maiden flirted with keys when they wanted to seem smarter, but Iron Maiden isn't supposed to sound smart. Maiden is just supposed to sound heavy.
Complex, but heavy.
Mutiny Within gets a pass because ivories-abuser Andrew Stavola solos with enough authority to make your average axe-shredder go limp. Wearing their guitar strings around their ankles and sending notes flying from their fretboards like a hit-and-run driver might flee state police troopers, guitarists Brandon Jacobs Dan Bage are fortunately up to the task at hand.
Sturdy drumming from Bill Fore and fleet-fingered bass licks from sole founding member Andrew "AJ" Jacobs creates the bedrock of the rhythm section, and vocalist Chris Clancy can effortlessly go from choke to Brian Fair-style boldness with his considerable, crystal-clear midrange.
"Keep it heavy, keep it fast and keep it clever. Never pace to anything. It is an active record," says bassist Jacobs, summing up what Mutiny stands for. And "active" is a brilliant way to describe the Edison-based sextet's style and attitude.
Mutiny Within doesn't stick to the ribcage as much as Dommin, but there's plenty of meat to be had on its dinosaur-sized bones. This is a clinic in virtuosity, but Mutiny has undeniable groove, too. The 11 songs that make up the disc smolder like a raging bonfire.
"Awake" shoots off its launch pad like a cruise missle headed for Osama bin Laden's forehead, and "Images" sweeps up the mess nicely. "Year of Affliction" is epic, and face-melters like "Lethean" and "Oblivion" will tear your cranium off clean.
Lyrically the band treads water in a gene pool similar to its peers, writing about death, violence and personal struggles, but in all honesty these dudes look like babies. And you can't knock someone for being young.
Once Mutiny's members have a few more lines in their faces, the lyrics will reflect that and make an already wicked strong Mutiny Within that much tougher. These guys are all business, and their name will be plastered all over summer rock festivals in 2010.
Listen for the thunder.
Listen up, peeps. Put the CD burners down and go out and drop the dough required to put your mitts on these discs. The month of February has produced not one, but two artists worthy of your respect and undivided attention. That doesn't happen every day.
Deserving bands deserve to have their art heard, but they also deserve to earn a living just like you. Dommin and Mutiny Within are the genuine article.
Show 'em some love.
The ABC12 Listening Room staff: James Chesna, editor-in-chief; Josh Daunt, managing editor, photographer; LeeAlan Weddel, contributing editor, staff writer, photographer; Beth McEnroe, staff writer, photographer; Gwen Mikolajczak, staff writer; Chris Harris, photographer, staff writer; Eric Fletcher, chief photographer; Randy Cox, photographer; Chris Carr, photographer; Norm Fairhurst, photographer; Jessica Reid, contributing photographer.
