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Tyrants Blood > Tyrants Blood > Reviews
Tyrants Blood - Tyrants Blood

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Noktorn, September 29th, 2007

Tyrants Blood is another one of those modern artists who straddle the crossroads between death, black, and thrash metal. There are numerous elements from each of those genres present on their self-titled debut LP, making it, at the very least, an extremely varied listen. There's a hell of a lot of riffs per song representing a perfect fusion of those three genres, with thrash rhythms, death heaviness, and a blackened sense of melody, and most of them are actually quite good. While a lot of artists that try such a fusion seem unfocused or sort of scattershot, Tyrants Blood is more direct than most, making this LP quite an enjoyable listen.

Each one of the ten tracks on this album is a very solid piece of extreme metal. I was rather underwhelmed on the first couple listens: I didn't quite pick up on all the rhythmic and melodic intricacies of the music, probably due to the somewhat flat production job that buries the guitars under vocals. But after examining it more thoroughly, I find myself enjoying this album more and more. It has that Canadian element of militaristic viciousness that you see so often in bands from the frozen north,I suppose the music could be somewhat described as a thrashier Angelcorpse, though the atmosphere is less Satanic in nature. Tyrants Blood are a rather no-nonsense band: they rip through these three and four minute tracks with alarming speed and aggression, without ever pausing for a keyboard break or ambient acoustic section. You know what to expect: lots of thrashy riffing, lots of double bass and Bolt Thrower beats, the occasional semimelodic solo, and a wonderfully spitting, almost Oi!-ish vocal performance.

There's not a great deal to say about an album like this. It's good and solid, as horribly overused as that word is. I consider 'Tyrants Blood' to be the companion piece to fellow Canadians Warmarch's 'The Declaration': a bread and butter album that you can put on at any time and thrash out to. It's music designed to be good, savage heavy metal within a certain aesthetic, and I think that Tyrants Blood achieves that goal admirably. Some things could be improved, of course: a bit more variation, a somewhat more dynamic production job; the usual suspects. But overall, I'm happy to own a copy of this LP and would recommend it to any and all extreme metal fans.