PlanetMosh Keeping it Metal
US alt rock four-piece DOMMIN have announced their long-awaited second album will be titled ‘Rise’. Produced by Matt Squire (Panic! At The Disco, The Used, HIM) and mixed by Joe Barresi (Queens of the Stone Age, Tool) ‘Rise’ will be released via DNRecords on June 21, the first day of Summer! Fans can pre-order the compelling album and a variety of rare and unique items through PledgeMusic at http://www.pledgemusic.com/dommin.
Enigmatic frontman and guitarist Kristofer Dommin reveals, “‘Rise’ is a musical evolution. I don’t enjoy repeating myself creatively so this album offers fans another face of the band. The songs are more empowering, maybe a bit more pissed-off, and definitely a lot more tongue-in-cheek.” Dommin’s keyboardist, Konstantine, sums it up with one word, “swagger.” Metal Hammer are premiering the title track’s dazzling new lyric video at: http://metalhammer.teamrock.com/news/2015-04-30/dommin-return-to-the-fold-with-rise and it will also be added to Dommin’s YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/DomminBand in due course.
‘Rise’ is the follow-up to the band’s impressive debut ‘Love Is Gone’, released in 2010 by Roadrunner Records. Described as “the voice of the broken-hearted,” that album saw the quartet defining a new era of underground goth-inspired alt rock, influenced by the likes of The Doors, Depeche Mode, Nirvana, Rammstein, and Type O Negative. First single, ‘My Heart, Your Hands’ was lauded as iTunes ‘Song Of The Week’ upon release. Dommin hit the road supporting acts like Rob Zombie, HIM, Lacuna Coil, Volbeat, Black Veil Brides, Cancer Bats, and Bullet For My Valentine, as well as performing at international festivals including Soundwave (Australia), Rock Am Ring/Rock Im Park (Germany), and Download (UK). The band then went on to pick up nominations for Best New Band and Best International Newcomer at the UK’s Metal Hammer Awards and Kerrang! Awards.
Soon though, the band were to face some of their toughest times both personally and professionally, making the creation of ‘Rise’ a long and arduous process from start to finish.
Over the tumultuous next three years, Dommin found themselves fighting against immobility, the passing of time, and a host of personal challenges. Kristofer comments, “On the first day of recording, we walked into the studio to the news of our label President resigning, our A&R being laid off, and a lot of our label friends inside and outside the country having their offices shut down or merged,” referring to the corporate restructuring that took place when Warner Music Group completed the purchase of Roadrunner Records. “We didn’t know what to expect and tried to proceed as business as usual, but it did set a dark cloud over the whole experience.”
Bassist Billy James continues, “We were in a legal limbo for a while then, unable to move forward. We had a recorded but unmixed album. It pretty much kept the band frozen.” The band members got jobs, paid their bills, and worked on extricating themselves from the legal tangle and putting their lives back together. Eventually free agents and fired up again, it would be nearly 2½ years between when the songs were first recorded and when they were finally mixed.
Surprisingly, the fruit of that experience was not another melancholy collection of songs. Kristofer describes this period as giving new prophetic meaning to the music. “The songs were meant to describe a bouncing back from the heavy emotional turmoil of the first album’s message. What I didn’t know is that the songs would take on new significance when I lost my record deal, my relationship, and my father. I didn’t know that I would ended up needing the songs like I did and it forced me to live up to my own lyrics. We had to dig deep and find our strength and ask ourselves who we are and what we wanted.”
‘Rise’ is an exciting musical illustration of the resolve that one hopes to find in the wreckage of broken relationships and damaged psyches. Kristofer concludes, “This has been a personal evolution as well as a musical evolution for the band. We’ve been reborn from the ashes and come out of the darkness bearing a light that we want the whole world to see.” When asked about the message of ‘Rise’, he muses, “Maybe I’d coin this new album…the voice of the hopeful-hearted.”
visit the following official Dommin pages: Website: www.dommin.com ~ Facebook: www.facebook.com/dommin ~ Twitter: www.twitter.com/dommin (@dommin) ~ YouTube: www.youtube.com/DomminBand ~ Instagram: http://instagram.com/dommin
