Band:	Tyrant (JPN)
Album:	Grimoires
Style:	Symphonic black metal
Release date:	May 2005

01. Initiation
02. Devil's Pact
03. Fallen Angel Of Plague
04. Bell, Book And Candle
05. Rebellion Part 1.
06. Riding The Breeze
07. Rebellion Part 2.
08. Thy Night Queen, Hecate
09. Woe, Ruin And Death
10. Babylon, The Great
11. Prophecy Of Lucifer
12. Rebirth Of Old Serpent
13. Only The Moon Knows [Digipack bonus]

Black from Japan

It's always a pleasure to watch an album that has gorgeous cover art, you can get lost while watching all the details of the work. This is the case with Tyrant, I'm completely absorbed by their cover art and inlay design. They hired Jarmo Lahti for the task, he has worked with other acts like Nuomena and Dreamtale.

Since I made my statement and now everybody knows that I simply love the artwork in this album, let's talk about what's really important: The music.
Funny fact: Tyrant are Japanese, where's the fun on this? They play Black Metal. Still don't get it? How many times you've seen Japanese guys using corpse painting?

You might think they play raw, brutal Black Metal, wrong again. They play Symphonic Black Metal and this is their third album, but first one on Japanese label World Chaos Productions.

Tyrant could be described as fast paced and catchy Black Metal, with some reminiscences of Cradle Of Filth ad Dimmu Borgir.
But here's the catch, these guys have some differential elements, like the virtuoso guitar playing, the lead guitar is constantly playing virtuoso solos and clean notes which brings a nice elements to the whole neo-classical arrangements of the songs.

The band uses proper orchestration to achieve the atmosphere, violin, viola, cello and flute are the instruments that are alongside the music always. Keyboards are present also, but they tend to get a little cheesy from time to time.

The lyrics are mainly satanic so nothing much happening there, although they're written quite properly (but is a boring subject anyway).
If I could pick some tracks I would definitively go for "Devil's Past", "Bell, Book And Candle", "Fallen Angel Of Plague" and "Babylon, The Great". My only complain is the last 2 tracks last more than 9 minutes each and I find it excessively long. This band is quite good, but they can't stretch their songs that much.

This is truly a good find for me, catchy Symphonic Black Metal with a lot of cool arrangements and excellent visual presentation. Any fan of the genre should grab this one immediately.