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After being really knocked flat by 2004s Emperor Of The Black Runes I was stoked to get a hold of a new Domine album, but anticipation goeth before a fall. Domine's 5th studio album, while having some good moments, is overall disappointing.

Last time out, Domine laid off the keyboard crap and cranked up some killer guitars to produce smoking cuts of pure steel like "True Believer" and "Battle Gods". Even when they did get pompous, they produced the awesome "Aquilonia Suite", so I was prepared to cut them some slack. After all, this is Domine, who produced the awesome Champion Eternal and such great songs as "Hurricane Master" and "True Leader Of Men", how can they fuck up? Well, they could trade in their hard-edged metal for a bunch of happy, pop-sounding melodies, and then they could always avoid their usual Elric-focused lyrics for a bunch of psychobabble nonsense that sounds like it was clipped out of a book of inspirational postcards, like they did here.

Make no mistake, performance-wise this is excellent, and some of the riffs are very good. Even the melodies I don't like are well-done, but they are syrupy and over-cheesy to the extreme. I'm talking about happy-poppy melodies and cues that would make Micheal Bolton blush. Even the cool riff from "Another Time, Another Place, Another Space" can't overpower the drippy, sickly-sweet vocal lines and lyrics which harp on in the vein of "I will fly to the stars because I'm a true soul of freedom and I will find my real place in the golden pillared halls of wonder and everything will be so pretty I will just explode." I mean, pardon me while I get an insulin shot.

The first couple of songs on here are okay, but after that it just becomes a mess of sappy power-pop goo that is all the more frustrating because it is such well-done goo. But I'm not going to settle for this from Domine. Guys, whatever happy-pills you are on, you need to knock it off, because it's making your music suck royally. Sad to say, but this is a Domine album you can skip.