Review: “Dominion” by IAMTHESHOTGUN

Denver, Colorado quintet IAMTHESHOTGUN have been in the Deathcore game since 2007. Formed when guitarist Bryan Pelle met Kareem Hendricks the pair became the bands backbone and song writing partnership having bonded over their mutual love of Melodic Death Metallers Dead to Fall. It took until 2011 for them to complete their team and dropped their self titled debut album a year later. That has that party aesthetic of Attila or Dr Acula with song titles like “Cheddar Is Good But Brie Is Better” and “Party Like It’s Shark Week“, violent and aggressive but with a vicious sense of humour. A pair of EPs later in 2014’s brutal “Garroter” and 2016’s “Devout” saw the band gain some notoriety before things fell silent. Well now the band are back and have a new line up with Bryan Pelle the only original member.

The open shotgun pump of “1692” sees something we haven’t heard from IAMTHESHOTGUN before. DJent infused Deathcore riffs. Previous work was more on the Death Metal side of the Deathcore sound but this opening cut takes what the likes of Reflections are doing now and puts the Denver curb stomp on it. As you’d expect there a Deathcore roars and driven stuccato riffs a plenty and they continue into the “Metanoia” which is one constant, belligerent breakdown battery with some tight ambient technical lead work that delivers punch than a prize heavyweight champion. Vocalist Joshua Vega is a consummate professional and capable of some demonic, blood gargling vocals. A warped opening riff bring in “Dogma” which has haunting overtones with some sinister, creepy buried leads that have something of KoRn about them while lyrics call for the World to burn. Each track on the EP benefits from the brutally powerful rhythm section with Alan Paredes delivering some solid bass lines. Title track “Dominion” is an absolute beast with lyrics like “Bless me with sores, strike down my flesh and bones, decay, eternal rot, Lay me in barren, Feet to the crown” bringing home that sinister urge while also being immediately screamable. Following bands like The Last Ten Seconds Of Life “Cyanide 909” is a downtuned punch in the face with a knuckleduster with Beam reaching new depths of low in his vocal transgressions and in places touching the void to Slam [8/10]

Track listing

1. 1692
2. Metanoia
3. Dogma
4. Dominion
5. Cyanide 909

“Dominion” by IAMTHESHOTGUN is out now. You can check out their older material over at bandcamp