Dominator

Dominator is a serious thirteenth album on which W.A.S.P., while using dramatic metal methods, strongly inscribes intense irritation at the era and a taut tension. Heavily chopped guitar and Blackie Lawless’s narrating-like vocals steadily build an uneasy, heavy pressure from song to song. Heavy themes of war and society run throughout. In the aggression of the opener “Mercy,” the drama of “Long, Long Way to Go” and the grand expanse of “Take Me Up,” W.A.S.P.’s grandiosity and earnestness powerfully coexist, while cuts like “The Burning Man” and “Heaven’s Hung in Black” deeply convey the work’s weighty world. It sounds head-on the quiet but fierce anger behind the flashy decoration. Its appeal is powerfully foregrounding the band’s social, serious message rather than the glittering-show side. Lawless’s mature expression and sure songwriting powerfully support the heavy theme. A hard-edged, weighty, engaging heavy-metal work — a record where a veteran’s anger swirls.