Tyrant of Death (Single's & Extras)

It's finally here, the much-promised and highly anticipated new release that Alex Rise has been teasing since the start of the year. Oh boy, I bet you can't wait to dig into all this new material! Wait, it's a compilation? Don't worry, it's not a best-of. No, it's actually a compilation of songs that were released as singles elsewhere (ie. YouTube). Truth be told this isn't quite what I expected when Alex announced that there would be a new album from this project, and really this is a bit of a hodgepodge of ideas that didn't really fit into one simple box together like the rest of his albums do. I'd go as far as to say this is somewhat a collection of B-sides, the tracks that weren't good enough to make the cut elsewhere. Nothing holds a candle to 'Cyanide' or 'Stellar Vengeance' or 'Commence' or even the fantastic standalone 'From Earth to Hell' which I was slightly surprised not to see appear on this compilation.

Is it still listenable? Of course, even if it isn't his best work this still has the Tyrant of Death logo slapped on it after all. The intensity is never in question, and as ever it is very in-your-face. The guitars churn out riffs akin to an industrial buzz-saw, which are very prominent and noisy - in some senses, the same Tyrant of Death we hear right across the discography - but which uncharacteristically lack direction. The usual groove is often missing and truth be told it's a bit flat and lifeless. It seems more than ever that they're there just to provide an omnipotent droning. It does vary from track to track, as some such as 'I Am the Wicked' utilise the guitars better than for example 'The Divide', which is simply four and a half minutes of bludgeoning chugs coupled with a drumming masterclass and a lead that I can't decide whether I like or not.

Speaking of which the use of a lead guitar on a number of tracks is one of few real plusses on this record, as it provides something different from the electronic keyboard that features so heavily across the discography. That's not to say that the keyboard isn't there, it certainly gets its fair share of the run-time, but the best track by far is the aforementioned 'I Am the Wicked' which practically does away with it altogether. It does intrigue me as to what a whole album in that style would sound like, though I doubt that we'll find out the answer to that very soon.

Given that this is a compilation it is somewhat hard to fit everything under one banner, and indeed that is one of the main problems with regards to this record in comparison to those that preceded it. If I hear a song from Cyanide, I immediately know that it is from Cyanide. If I hear a song from Ion Legacy, I immediately know that it is from Ion Legacy. If I hear a song from Singles and Extras, I cannot place it. There isn't a set theme, the consistency that makes this catalogue so fascinating. Yes, there's an argument to be made for strength in diversity, but when you hear 'The Shapeshifter', a gritty albeit melodic industrial ripper, and then follow it up with electronic weirdness a la 'Afterburner' it's quite clear that they are not one entity. Sometimes it's instrumental and sometimes it's not, sometimes it's electronic and sometimes it's industrial metal, sometimes it's good and sometimes it just isn't. The rest of the Tyrant of Death discography are all fully-formed centaurs, a human-animal hybrid which combines the best of two distinct elements to form something even better. This, however, is more like one of the human-pig chimeras you see on click-bait news articles.

I've perhaps been a bit scathing with some of the words in this review, and I'm fairly certain I'll read this sometime later and think I've entirely exaggerated the extent of this album's problems. By no means is this a bad record to listen to, but it certainly wouldn't make the same first impression to a new listener as I had when I discovered Re Connect and I would easily call this the weakest item in what is overall one of the most consistently entertaining catalogues one could hope to find. It is a tad disappointing to still not have a new LP given Ion Legacy came out more than three years ago now, prior to which albums were arriving mere months apart, but I suppose we can hope that this is simply a prelude to a vastly superior release to follow.