The Ultimate Review of Call of...

Fear of Domination's album Create.Control.Exterminate. made an instant and lasting impact on me. I don't like my music to be too dependent on keyboards but prefer the guitars and drums to carry the music forward, in melodeath at least. That album doesn't fit that description, but still merited a score of 92% from me, which speaks volumes about the quality they produced.

This album, titled Call of Schizophrenia, is again fairly keyboard-heavy, only this time with more hardness in the guitars that relegate the keyboard to being second in line for fronting the assault. I like their approach here and it works well, but sometimes I have to question what's going on with the keyboards. For example, in the song Mistake in Evolution they just sound plain out of place when they're not lurking the background. Everything else fits together well, but the keyboard is like a piece from a different jigsaw entirely. It detracts slightly, which is a shame. For the most part this isn't the case, but there are odd moments like that every now and again.

The main vocals are very heavily distorted and get buried far within the mix of the other instruments, but they're not something that causes any kind of negative impact on the music. The occasional cleans that keyboardist Niina Telén uses are a nice mix, but they only feature occasionally. I find that having the vocals held slightly back is actually a good thing, because it means you can focus on the other stuff that's going on which is more interesting, because let's face it, there isn't much variety in Saku Solin's voice.

There is a lack of anything spectacular in terms of melodies here (barring the solos, which are all fairly impressive) and it seems that at this point the band was more focused on playing industrial than melodeath, but it is surprisingly enjoyable. I always found Rammstein to be okay and not much more than that, but this blows their stuff right out of the water. It's heavier, played better, features more interesting riff patterns and is just generally more enjoyable. Fans of industrial (of which there probably aren't many on this website) should really consider giving these guys a go.

I find the best track is Theatre. That song is more melodeath oriented with some neat hooks being played throughout, but it still retains the heavy riffs from the rest of the album. The keyboard is once again fairly subtle, but the guitars are interesting enough to hold their own without the keyboard doing much. The drumming - which I haven't even mentioned thus far - is as solid as it is across the entire album, but nothing spectacular. I find that that song is over far quicker than the other songs despite it not having any great difference in length.

Some might be put off by the industrial influences, but Fear of Domination's sound is very unique with the industrial/melodic death metal mix that they play and I find it to be one that works well. You have to be able to deal with some fairly bland stuff as well, but even when one part is playing something uninspiring something else counteracts this. There's always something good to listen to. I would recommend this to anyone that likes metal of any sort.
Final Score: 84 / 100