Long before he was filling stadiums with VOLBEAT, Michael Poulsen was writing fast, ugly death metal in Denmark. That chapter of his catalogue is finally getting a proper vinyl release.
All four DOMINUS full-lengths — "View To The Dim" (1994), "The First 9" (1996), "Vol. Beat" (1997) and "Godfallos" (2000) — will be pressed to vinyl for the first time ever, arriving September 4 at 3 p.m. CET / 9 a.m. EDT through Volbeat.dk and participating record stores on the same day.
The run is deliberately tight. Each title is limited to 500 copies worldwide, with a further 30 signed test pressings per album. All four records have been remastered specifically for vinyl and come with restored artwork. DOMINUS t-shirts are also available through the same store, and the full catalogue is already streaming.
The reissues close a loop that Poulsen reopened himself a few years ago. While assembling material for VOLBEAT's 2021 album "Servant Of The Mind", he found himself writing death metal riffs and stockpiling them on his phone. Once the VOLBEAT record was finished, those riffs became the foundation of ASINHELL, whose debut "Impii Hora" — Latin for "Ungodly Hour" — arrived in September 2023 via Metal Blade.
Poulsen sang in DOMINUS and sings in VOLBEAT, but he had no interest in fronting ASINHELL. Instead he called ex-MORGOTH vocalist Marc Grewe, also of INSIDIOUS DISEASE, in March 2022. For drums he approached Morten Toft Hansen of Danish band RAUNCHY — a choice driven partly by Hansen's playing and partly by pure convenience: their daughters are friends, and the drive to Hansen's place takes ten minutes.
The pair wrote quickly, often completing an entire song per session. With Grewe based in Germany and unavailable during the writing stretch, Poulsen sent him phone recordings from rehearsals so the vocals could take shape remotely.
Twenty-five years into VOLBEAT — nine full-lengths, millions of albums sold, stadium headline slots — the DOMINUS pressings serve as a reminder of where the frontman actually started. For anyone who came to Poulsen through the rockabilly-inflected radio hits, "View To The Dim" and "Godfallos" are a very different proposition, and now, for the first time, they exist as objects rather than obscure CDs.
Given the 500-copy ceiling, this is not a catalogue reissue built to sit in stock for long.
Source: blabbermouth.net