One can’t say that this band could easily win a contest for the most original moniker but fortunately for them, this Japanese five piece has other singularities on offer to stand out. First, the line-up is interesting, with two girls and three guys forming the band, an unusual combination in the Metal world especially if you consider that, for once, the girls don’t sing to rather play key-instruments. Second, even if they present themselves as a Black Metal band, TYRANT don’t play the game with the regular cards. In fact, as soon as the first track came out from the speakers, I thought at once TYRANT was rather influenced by happy melodic Speed Metal bands (like those in favor these days in Italy) than by the classic Black Metal ones from the North. And oddly enough, some of the songs remind me a lot of the Will Tsamis project LORDIAN GUARD (especially the track ‘Wargod’), thanks to a ever present concern for serene melody and the over prominent keyboards parts on which all the songs are based. Only the vocals link TYRANT to Black Metal, even if they sound more like croaks than demented screams, a factor to better up in the future I think. The production is a little thin, especially in the drums department, and the guitar is used here only as a rhythmic instrument, all the melody coming from the keyboards as I said above. The overall result is not bad, but hearing this album at least three times left me somewhat uncertain about the TYRANT future, as they could encounter difficulties to find their audience, being too melodic for the extreme Metal fans and too blackened for the regular Heavy Metal ones. Well, I recommend this one for the Metal generalists, open-minded enough to appreciate this cool album. One last point: I am getting tired of Petagno’s cover art flooding the market these days, to me it is not a selling point, sorry, but rather the proof of a lack of imagination!