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It's difficult to categorise Tyrant's Reign: They're essentially an heavy metal band that ventures quite often into speed and thrash territory, with sounds that seem to borrow from several bands such as Overlorde, Intruder, mid-80s Metallica and Exciter, to name only a few. There's quite a bit of diversity here, and these influences are audible both in the musical and vocal lines, making this release quite interesting to say the least. Things go from very slow and quiet to high speed all-hell-breaks-loose speed/thrash-o-rama - there's no boring moment here.

The only thing that's a bit disappointing is that there is no single song that leave a real lasting impression - they're all good songs, but there's nothing here that really sticks in your head afterwards, save for a few passages here and there. Usually that's a show stopper for me, but things are a bit different in this case: The songs are actually good, they're just not really catchy. This release includes material from a demo and EP as well as some live cuts, all originally recorded in 1988 and 1989. Usually recordings from different sources result in an annoying tendency for the sound to change drastically throughout the album, but in this case the whole thing flows together pretty smoothly. The sound is overall pretty good, raw enough to give the music some more teeth (the same material with a more polished sound would definitely not have the same kick-ass effect.) Despite some minor shortcomings, this is one good slab of old school heavy/speed/thrash. Of course, back when this material was written, it wasn't called old school yet. ;) Definitely worth checking out.