Immortal Dominion

Fate can be a sick fucker. As a founding member of Immortal Dominion, former bassist Stephen Sherwood helped forge some of the most brutal and unflinching metal Colorado has ever seen. On August 3, he shot his wife and then himself, killing them both, after returning from service in Iraq. Sherwood didn't play on Dominion's new disc, Awakening, but his shadow is sure to darken its release. Although a near apotheosis of the band's Slayer-versus-In Flames blitzkrieg, there's no way to listen to it free of gravity, even apprehension. But draw all the ties you want between the Sherwood tragedy, the atrocity of war and even the extremes of death metal itself -- no amount of conjecture can diminish this disc's sculpted rage and sheer, scapular precision. Although scant solace, here's hoping that the Awakeningproves to be as cathartic in reality, for both fan and bandmember, as it is on plastic.