ReView: Dome Runner – apocalypse.pulse.worship. EP0

Dome Runner
Album: apocalypse.pulse.worship. EP
Category: Industrial / Grind / Metal
Label: Annihilvs Power Electronix
Release Date: 2023-09-01
Author: Ilker Yücel (Ilker81x)

Following two years after the band made its auspicious debut, this apocalypse.pulse.worship. EP from Dome Runner shows the Finnish group pulling all the stops to grind the listener’s psyche into dust. Fans of the earlier works of Pitch Shifter and Godflesh will certainly detect more than a few similarities in style, with Simo Perkiömäki’s mixing managing to achieve an even lower fidelity than even those bands’ first efforts; it certainly adds to the industrialized ambience, though it does by definition negate some of the finer nuances that might allow Dome Runner to stand above the obvious comparisons. For instance, tracks like “Subversion Shock” and “Frustrator” especially show Perkiömäki’s capabilities as a vocalist, incorporating gritty and rasping melodies that nicely deviate from the overly distorted growls that permeated the opening “Retaliator,” which along with the minimal and melancholy keyboards offer some tuneful respite from the otherwise relentless barrage of programmed percussion and shrill distortion. There is an almost PRONG-like quality to the riffs on “Stirred Impulsive Capacity” as the squealing harmonic pinches complement the fury and vitality of the vocals, and there is a certain compositional allure to the occasional shifts in tempo, mood, and rhythm, but the conspicuously major key progressions of “Weak Meat Frail Star” almost feel anticlimactic amid the fervent onslaught of apocalyptic despair, as if to dangle a carrot of hope for the listener. That hope is immediately quelled by Theologian’s remix of “Undemonizing Process,” closing the EP out with dark ambience, martial rhythms, and droning guitars, the abrupt end making it all the more disconcerting. Of course, Dome Runner seems content to not reinvent the wheel of industrial/metal, and the dank production is clearly deliberate in its enhancement of the dismal lyrical themes. If nothing else, the band achieves what the EP’s title suggests, though one wonders how much darker and dissonant Dome Runner plans to take things on the next outing.
 
Track list:

1. Retaliator
2. Subversion Shock
3. Stirred Impulsive Capacity
4. Frustrator
5. eak Metal Frail Star
6. Undemonizing Process [Theologian Remix]

 
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