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Tyrant, as a band, have been around for over 40 years, though their output has been spotty, to say the least. After their two rather well-regarded albums in the '80s, they disappeared, produced another album in 1996, and now, 24 years later, we get their fourth album of highly traditional Heavy Metal, this time with ex-Solitude Aeturnus and Candlemass singer Robert Lowe on vocals.

Tyrant have always been a highly orthodox, old-school band, and they have some cause, as they were there in the old days. That said, none of their work ever really got me excited before. This album is much better, because they have taken advantage of a modern recording job while still not allowing things to get too slick or polished. This is the kind of Trad Metal where you will swear you have heard the songs somewhere before, because they all draw on the same kind of sounds from classic bands like Attacker, Cloven Hoof, Stormwitch, and Deadly Blessing.

Lowe's voice is really well suited to this kind of stuff, as he is digging into his rougher side, so he fits in perfectly. Opener "Dancing on Graves" is a bad starting point, because the chorus is annoying and makes you think the album will be downhill from there, instead it goes up, getting to classic, doomy slices of metal like "Fire Burns" and "When the Sky Falls". In general this album is pretty doomy, and whether that is Lowe's influence or not, it was a good idea. Rather than the solid but kind of generic metal of their classic days, Hereafter sounds more like Sorcerer or Beyond the Crimson Horizon than Helstar, and I think that's a definite plus. A reunion album that is worth your time.