Tuesday 11 October 2011

Tyrant - Tyrant

Self Released 2011

1.Two Smokin' Barrels 2.Victim 3.Business As Usual

Describing themselves at Thrash/ Technical metal, Leeds based Tyrant are certainly Thrash in essence. ‘Two Smokin’ Barrels’ is a quite generic affair, seemingly attempting to mix their thrash element with a slight metal-core sound and some death metal to keep the brutality but unfortunately the end result is extremely underwhelming. The clean sung vocals aren’t the best, sounding very amateurish, sometimes out of tune and not particularly well structured. The obligatory death grunts have been added as backing vocals and sound like an afterthought to keep the song on the right side of extreme. Maybe if the main vocals were all in the guttural death metal style then this review might have ended up very different, but then again that would have lost the band their thrash sound. ‘Victim’ sounds absolutely appalling, the vocals ruining what could be a great song as the music behind them is quite good, being thrash at heart with a touch of death metal to add brutality. Not sure who mixed this, but the volume on the vocals has been increased to the point where they take over the whole track, the music taking a back seat to some awful vocals. It’s easy to see what the vocalist is trying to achieve, be a thrash metal singer, but at the moment it’s just not working for him.
‘Business As Usual’ follows a similar path, again the production absolutely awful, the music may as well not be there, it’s dropped so far out of the mix. Very disappointing because the music is quite good, showing some promise albeit somewhat sloppy in places. There’s more attempts to inject some death metal into the sound by using death grunts and screams, but again sounding like they have been added as an afterthought. Musically Tyrant are attempting to recreate thrash metal from the early days, the likes of Acid Reign and Re-Animator present in their sound. Granted this release is only a demo, but in an age where you really have sell your band to get any sort of recognition, these three tracks aren’t doing Tyrant any favours. A mix of thrash and death metal with metal-core style clean sung vocals isn’t a good mix, too many influences and ideas which just don’t gel. Tyrant need to decide 'who and what they are' as judging by this effort they lack identity. They also need to find a new studio with a half decent producer as the mix and production seen here is piss poor. Sadly lacking originality, there is so much better out there.
4 out of 10

1 comment:

  1. Hey guys, we're aware that the mix is truly dreadful - we'll be re-recording the entire thing with a new producer in a different studio as soon as possible, and giving away the new one for free to anybody who bought the old copy. Sorry the tracks are a tad underwhelming - this is a demo we recorded for free, and we've never really set out to be "extreme"! Our singer had also been in the band for about a week when we recorded this. With the recording as it is, this review is entirely fair - however, I hope when all is re-recorded to a much higher quality you'll take another look at it! Keep it metal guys

    - Rick

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