Emperor of the Black Runes

Domine were on fucking fire with this one. Emperor of the Black Runes is an inarguable monolith of pure class and flare, and probably my favorite Italian power metal album ever. This band has sort of fallen off the tracks lately and has not released any new albums since 2007, but even if they never do again, we still have this one.

Emperor of the Black Runes is something of a songwriting gestalt in its genre. These are long, long songs, but the band never gets boring or even loses a bit of steam. They just gallop effortlessly through songwriting carnivals of searing leads, heavy metal riffing, power metal choruses, choirs, orchestrations and all, all while sounding completely true and heavy, with a very serious and somber bent. There is nothing “cheesy” about this. There is nothing “flowery,” either. It is pure molten steel layered with a metric ton of class. Each song is larger than life, energetic and vital-sounding.

And the variety, too! These guys pack everything in here. You get fast riff-bangers like “Battle Gods,” “The Song of the Swords” and the awesome smash of “True Believer,” where the band sounds like they’re literally on fire with passion and power. You get the sweet ballad “Forest of Light,” which is very sophisticated and genuine. But the real meat of the album is the awesome epic tunes they churn out like it’s the most natural thing since learning to tie their shoes. The chief one is “The Aquilonia Suite - Part I,” which is a sort of cobble of Basil Pouledoris’ classical themes into metal riffing and epic songwriting tropes, and it’s just stellar, captivating every second. But you also get more compact and intricate tunes like “The Prince in the Scarlet Robe” and “Icarus Ascending,” as well as the chamber-like “The Sun of the New Season” with its huge dramatic build up, beautiful melodies and grandiose melodic leads – just stunning really.

It’s hard to choose favorites, because pretty much every song has awesome moments and ear-catching slices of pure melodic glory. For power metal, this is the omega class, the top of the crop, and its epic scope and grandiose vision are just exquisite if you’re a fan of the genre even slightly. What else can I say about it? Top notch performances from all the band members and great songwriting make Domine’s Emperor of the Black Runes a modern day classic. Frankly this makes most European power metal look like a bunch of kiddy crap. Go hear this or forever remain a poseur.

Domine is an Italian metal band that has been around for a long, long time, and is still making a run for the power metal big-time today. In fact, Domine as a band will turn 20 this year, if they haven't already. This alone, plus the fact that there are only 5 known former members of the band is quite a feat. No matter how many demos they released during the mid-eighties and early ninties, they always kept on going, and never gave up. Colour me impressed. That's what I call devotion to music. Now, onto the review...

Domine are a power metal band that mixed different styles, such as epicness, and driving speed. Over half of the songs on their fourth studio album, "Emperor of the Black Runes" are of the fast persuation, and there is only a very small assortment of mid-paced and ballad songs to be found, which is how I prefer my metal. After the very epic and symphonic intro track, the album kicks off into "Battle Gods (Of the Universe)" which features lightning-fast riffage, epic keyboarding, vocals with occasional layered choirs and cool tapping guitar solos. A very fine way to start an album like this. Many of the faster songs on this album play out similar to "Battle Gods". "Chaos Star" is almost a carbon copy of the first song, with only a catchier chorus and some narration thrown in to spice things up. So, with that in mind, how does Domine try to mix things up on this album? Firstly, on their slower songs such as the brilliantly written "Icarus Ascending", and "The Forest of Light" make use of extremely uplifting and happy sounding clean and acoustic guitar ;ines that with entrance you during the verses, as the heavy distortion guitar sounds come in for triumphant chorus lines. The overall effect is dazzling. I really have trouble calling any of the songs on this album 'ballads', as almost none of the material on this disk sounds like anything I would call a ballad. Sure, the songs are slow, but they're just so dreamy and uplifitng. Maybe I'm just crazy.

In addition to your Lightning-quick tunes and your more mellow ones, Domine goes and throws some epic tracks into the mix, in the 11-minute form of "The Aquilonia Suite", which features a huge, epic song intro in the vein of a heavier Rhapsody, then blasts off into turbo speed. The second epic on this album is "The Sun of the New Season", which is slower-paced, and laden with a wicked guitar intro and several solos and double-guitar harmonies, not to mention the soaring vocal work that just makes each song that much cooler.

So, is there a downside to any of this? I guess the first thing that comes to mind is the singer. When I first heard Domine's Vocalist, "Morby"
coming from my speakers, I had to laugh at the poor guy's accent. It's super-thick. Either that, or he's jst got one of those weird, yet interestingly unique voices. It didn't take long to grow on me, so I hope that the rest of you can get into it. Also, I was hoping for more symphonic elements than there were present on this CD, and I got my hopes up when I heard the intro track and some of the epic keyboarding on the opening song, but I was slightly disappointed by the general lack of keyboardage throughout the whole disk, which some may actually prasie the band for. Oh well, we can't, and certainly don't want to have too many Rhapsody worshippers around. Also, some of the riffs get real repeditive. Especially on the fast songs. I often can't tell which song I'm on until I hear the chorus, like on "Battle Gods", "Chaos Star", and "Song of the Swords".

I'm gonna reccomend this album to anyone interested in power metal, particularily of the epic persuation. Fans of Rhapsody, Blind Guardian, Steel Attack and Human Fortress should check this out.

Key tracks:
"Battle Gods", "Chaos Star", "The Aquilonia Suite Part I", "Icarus Ascending", and "The Song of the Swords"