Four nuns walked into a bar!… This isn’t the start of some hilarious joke. Instead it could be the precursor for one of the best and hardest rocking nights of your life.
Dogma are a quartet of foot stompin’, hair swingin’, riff rattlin’ and surprisingly impressive hard rocking nuns. Four women on the same page musically, and spiritually, as they unite for rock n’ roll chaos and an album full of bangers and earworms which have barely left our headphones in weeks. The band’s debut album dropped last month via MNRK Heavy, with an eleven track slab of bodacious, bombastic arena-rocking tunes.
Dogma adopts the monikers of powerful feminine entities – Lilith, Lamia, Nixe, Abrahel – adopted by diverse, ancient cultures. The nun characters channel the best bits of The Pretty Reckless or In This Moment and frame their ass-booting riffs with sugary sweet hooks and melodies, with the theatre and pomp of KISS or Meatloaf with classic rock excess in spades.
Album opener Forbidden Zone is equal parts Courtney Love and Maria Brink, with Ghost style harmonies. There will be obvious comparisons made to Ghost with their religious costumes, on stage personas and make up, and of course the satanic leanings in the lyrics and subject matter of many of the songs. But Dogma is not Ghost-lite. They are different in as many ways that they may share similarities, and there is plenty of space for both these religion-inspired bands on anyone’s playlist or festival bill.
Feel The Zeal has a toe or two in the 80s and would slot right in on any 80s rock soundtrack back in the day. My First Peak leads us down a raunchy path with the chorus leaning into sexual innuendos with the lyrics explaining: “Corn fell in the floor, I kneeled on to it, I rubbed the illicit, that was my first peak. It poured out of me, it mixed with my bleed. And I started moaning, that was my first peak.”
The power metal is strong in Make Her Mine as the nuns sing “I made her sin, rubbing scissors in the dark,” before the anthematic Free Yourself, which sounds like every inch the Dogma anthem. Bare To The Bones is another hark back to the best parts of the 80s, a radio friendly rock riff, although the dark lyrics leaning into the occult might make regular airplay harder to come by than Pour Some Sugar on Me did.
There is a bit of a Mötley Crüe vibe in Pleasure From Pain, with a generous dollop of strings draped over the top for extra OTT rock n’ roll excess – and it is glorious.
The band themselves describe their take on religion as taking aim and attempting to destroy religious hypocrites and oppression, as they insist true blasphemy is to deny one’s self. Sexuality without compulsion, speaking out without fear: Dogma implores listeners to abandon the false reality of modern culture (with its deceitful posturing) and reclaim themselves.
As the band themselves say…welcome to your new life…welcome to Dogma.
7/10
Standout Tracks: Pleasure From Pain, Free Yourself, Father I Have Sinned
For Fans Of: KISS, Alice Cooper, The Pretty Reckless, In This Moment
Written by: Eric Mackinnon
