There are two veteran, bigger, supergroup -ish acts vying for this autumn’s top, high profile Swedish death metal release; the second effort from LIK (featuring Niklas Sundin of Katatonia)  and the sixth album from Demonical, featuring current and former members of Centinex, Grave and others). And the clear winner is Demonical.

I really enjoyed 2018s Chaos Manifesto, and World Domination follows suite with a stout, safe Swedish metal release, that leans heavily into the more melodic razor sharp tones of Dismember (as does LIK’s recent Misanthropic Breed), that mixes galloping slicing riffs and stout lopes , of course, all armed with that buzz saw guitar tone we all know and love (once again mixed and mastered by Karl Daniel Lidén).

Opening with “My Kingdom Done”, which recalls, the opener “Of Fire” from Dismember’s Death Metal album, Demonical get right to it with a throttling opener. As does second track “Hellfire Rain”. But as with “Välkommen undergång” from Chaos Manifesto, (delivered about the same  point in the album), it’s the slower, more menacing chugs where Demonical really delivers, and  “Aeons of Death” is that song here as well as the equally monstrous “Victorious”. But the album is largely a satisfying, beefier Dismember ish canter and blast like ” The Thin Darkness”, “We Stand As One” and vicious closer “Calescent Punishment”.

There is one anomaly on the album, the penultimate track “Slipping Apart”, asort of ballad that features vocalist Nils Patrik Johansson  of Danish progressive/ power metal act Wuthering Heights. And his clean croons don’t quite jive with Christofer Säterdal’s growls and bellows, I think they were going for a sort of Gardenian, “If Tomorrow’s Gone”, vibe, but it falls a bit flat.

Still another solid effort from the arguable top dogs in the genre, and now, one of the more consistent and longest running bands in the genre that continues to never get old.

[Visit the band's website]

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