Album Review: Hammerfall - Dominion

Years ago, when I was first getting into metal, it was through power metal, and Hammerfall was one of my introductions. They were leading the charge of power metal's renaissance, and those first four albums are tremendously fun, cheesy power metal. I haven't gone back and spent much time listening to them in recent years, but I've got a soft spot for those songs. But over the years, Hammerfall has been failing to live up to anything approaching their standards. It started when they went to make a modern sounding record, which I hated, and their return to their old sound has been accompanied by a lack of the same songwriting from before. So when I see a new Hammerfall album in my inbox, the feeling isn't excitement so much as it is anxiety; will Hammerfall once again make me question why I liked them in the first place?

Things didn't get off to a good start when the first track released was "(We Make) Sweden Rock", which is one of those lazy songs that thinks it's clever by name-checking a dozen other bands and songs. All it tells me is the band didn't have anything they wanted to say, nor the energy to even put together some meaningless lyrics that had some interesting language in them. Listing bands you used to like isn't an interesting topic for a song, no matter who's doing it. I expect better.

The rest of the album settles into familiar ground, with the topics firmly lodged in the world of knights and battle. So you've got the same topics, the same basic sound, and the same voice, but there's something missing in modern Hammerfall that doesn't spark the same way they used to. I would describe it as a lack of swagger. These songs don't have the same confidence behind them, they aren't battle hymns (sorry for the Manowar pun), but rather songs that sound like they want to be them. Hammerfall, at this point, sounds like a Hammerfall tribute band.

Since I already mentioned them, let's be clear; mediocre Hammerfall is still worlds better than Manowar. Manowar is capable of truly gut-wrenching bad music, while Hammerfall is not. This record is perfectly solid power metal that will scratch the itch for devoted fans. I'm in the boat where I'm no longer satisfied with hitting the building blocks on the instruction sheet. I need something a bit more from my power metal, and Hammerfall isn't capable of that anymore. They do fine, but I've heard enough music both in my life, and this year, that fine gets forgotten pretty easily.

The problem is that when I think about Hammerfall, I remember the two CDs I had compiling the best tracks from those early albums. There hasn't been a song from them in a decade that could crack that top twenty-five or so, and nothing here can either. Their ballads aren't as stirring, their rockers aren't as melodic, and their chants aren't as grand. Everything is just a beat slower and off the mark, compared to when they really nailed it.

So sure, "Dominion" is fine for Hammerfall fans, but I'm not going to give a lot of praise to a band's middle-of-the-road work. This is no "Legacy Of Kings", not by a long shot.