Boy, I’m a shameful idiot for missing out on Italian death metal decapitators Dominhate and their debut full-length Towards the Light.  What I’m hearing on the band’s EP follow-up Emissaries of Morning is a band in complete control of the craft with every switch, flinch and twitch that made me a fan of the style in the first place.  Yeah, brutal is an applicable word to use in describing the band’s sound, but these guys have a lot more to offer than double-bass damnation, ridiculous speed and toilet bowl growls.

“Saturn Rising” is a stage-setting instrumental where the howl of gusting, plain-kicking wind is accompanied by piercing thrusts of drone guitar feedback.  On first listen you might think you’re delving into the old underbelly of the Southern Lord roster, yet first impressions are as deceiving as they come.  It’s in the backwards-tumbling, doom-inflected opening riff of “Awakening Confessiones” that the real power of Dominhate reveals itself in full.  Soon Slippy’s double-bass patterns and scattershot blastbeasts combine in unholy orgy with the detuned, quick-cutting riffage of Alex and Jesus’ Earthy, moldy guitar gutwrench.  Deicide and Suffocation fans should find what they’re looking for here with a righteous combination of anthemic riff-work running ramshackle over mangled blood oaths where technicality holds the same weight as sheer lightspeed headfuck.  Steve’s thick, puking growls are placed sternly in the mix throughout and whenever the song dissipates into feedback his grumbling bass line leads the band into a skin-peeling, sludge tremor that’s heavy in the grand tradition of Incantation and Putrevore.  Alex places a soaring lead over top of the ground level violence which gives the music is a killer, desolate atmosphere that’s smashed to pieces thanks to some of the vilest death metal this side of this shit-covered planet.

There’s no downward lunge or black hole riff to be found in the opening of “Faith Delirius Imago,” no sir, you can fuck off with your wanton lust of creepy crawly sleaze as the quartet catapults themselves into the immolating rape of blasts beats, twin riff collisions with no slowdown and goddamn rapturous vocals.  Sometimes a sickening, semi mid-tempo chord display will unfold some catchier elements but mostly this thing careens along faster than the Roadrunner on crack with solo snippets so fast you’ll need a quick earhole to catch ‘em proper.  2:20 harnesses an old school, detuned DM bowel churner where a defecating groove finally provides some respite and a point to bang your head at a discernible speed.  It’s in these moments where Dominhate truly excel and rise into a truly special band for me.

There are about a 1,000 DM bands that wish they could capture that sexually harassing, doom molestation that these guys bottle up in their riffs and ragged rhythm evacuations.  “Immolation Carmen Astri” allows a hungover, stumbling doom riff to introduce the proceedings while the double-bass quickly heightens the tension as the guitar work hoists triumphant, hard-boiled power chord climbs.  It’s such a fucking unnerving riff that you’ll have hardly have time to plant your feet and brace yourself for the baby bashing death metal rampage to follow.  Rounding things out, “Creation Quies Monumenti” weighs heavily on dense riff grinds wallowing in doom n’ gloom while spaced-out, atmospheric pacing gives the band plenty of time to make each passage yield a lasting impression.  For my money there just isn’t enough death metal like this and if I’m missing out on some key bands, please fuckin’ tell me.  Dominhate’s range between kill yo mama blast-o-rama, smugly unforgiving slime sludge and heady tempo breaks is second to none on this track.

Emissaries of Morning’s only fault is that it’s too damn short and leaves you wanting more…but maybe that’s the testament of one helluva band.  I could have swallowed a whole album of this stuff with a ravenous appetite, but then again, I can go back and check out Towards the Light for more of these maniacs unapologetic, unfuckwithable take on locked in death metal’s sonic seethe.  I can’t see any fans of old school and just generally fuckin’ good DM being displeased with this.

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