Description

Cloven Hoof burst onto the Nwobhm scene with quite some flair and released their fully fledged debut album in 1984. With ‘Cloven Hoof’ the group scored a lasting document from the second generation of New Wave of British Heavy Metal bands. It would take 4 years before we finally saw a second full length album from the band. ‘Dominator’ was a science-fiction concept album with three old tracks that had been re-recorded. ‘Reach For The Sky’ and ‘The Fugitive’ originally appeared on the ‘Fighting Back’ live album, and ‘Road Of Eagles’ was a re-recording of an 1982 demo track. By this time Cloven Hoof really weren’t sounding nearly as classically Nwobhm as they used to. ‘Dominator’ came out in 1988, and by then the original Nwobhm scene had pretty much played itself out. Diamond Head had already shot its load, Angel Witch’s latest album was crap, Saxon’s 1988 album was their weakest so far etc. Even the mighty Iron Maiden didn’t sound what they used to do in 1988 (the sound on Seventh Son of a Seventh Son is hardly what comes to mind when you think of Nwobhm). Most of the Nwobhm bands that survived this long were either coasting along on previous success or had been forced to adapt. Cloven Hoof was certainly one of the latter, and Dominator sounds almost like early power metal; at rare times it even reminds me of Mannilla Road, with their penchant for tricking you with unusual song structures (sometimes just when a song is about to end and you think it’s shown you everything, a new melody or section comes out of nowhere right before it ends, as in ‘Nova Battlestar’). Yes, it’s that epic. The whole album is great and the only complain is the damn production. Pretty much everything except the vocals and the guitar solos are just totally crippled. It’s as if you’re standing with Russ North next to you, and the rest of the band is in another room; Andy Wood ducks in for the solos (and not the leads, strangely enough). This really hurts, because if you really pay attention to the riffs, they’re really good. This is a classic album, and if they were to remaster this one in the future then I would definitely by a cd version too. If you’re a fan of epic heavy metal and can get past the production then you’ll love Dominator.

Track listing:
1. Rising Up
2. Nova Battlestar
3. Reach For The Sky
4. Warrior Of The Wasteland
5. The Invaders
6. The Fugitive
7. Dominator
8. Road Of Eagles