Album review: Tyrant's Kall - Dagon

Autopsy and Sabbath Fhtagn!

Tyrant's Kall are a Lovecraftian band from West-Flanders, Belgium. They play this interesting mix of doom, death and even some traditional metal. They call themselves slime metal and that gets the idea across quite well I have to say. Iä Iä Cthulhu fhtagn it is. Dagon was the first album they released back in 2012.

What makes this band stand out from the crowd is that they shift quite seamlessly between different styles of heavy metal. The switches from Autopsyesque death metal parts to something more like Sabbath all feel natural. Sure doom/death metal is something that has been around for a while, yet I've only found a couple bands that mix these styles like Tyrant's Kall do. I'd say that the band pulls these switches off because of 2 main reasons. First of all the songwriting skills of this band are of a high level. In fact I dare to state that this is the biggest strength of the band. They arrange their songs just right to get the most out of every idea. The diverse nature of the vocals is the second reason. She combines both harsh vocals with rough sounding cleans. Strictly speaking she is not the best vocalist but what she does fits the music well. Her quite understandable style of harsh vocals add to the story telling aspect of the band and her cleans fit the more traditional heavy metal parts of the album. All the lyrics on this album take from the Cthulhu mythos, for example track number 5 Shrieks retells The Dunwich Horror. All what she really help tie it all together.

What is not entirely up to par however are the riffs. Quite a few riffs on this record are nothing special but seem better than they are due to this bands songwriting skills. Other bands simply have written better versions of more than a few riffs you can find on this record. While there are still some really cool riffs on this album, most notably the death metal riff on this albums opener, they are on average only sufficient and nothing more.

I really like the attitude and nature of this band. There is just something unapologetic about writing something rooted in various old school elements while still creating something fresh and different. In essence they prove that Lovecraft, Autopsy and Black Sabbath are timeless sources of inspiration. Sources that lead to worthwhile new artistic endeavours even today so many years after these people made their most important works.

Final Score: 83/100

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