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What immediately struck me about Belgium's own Tyrant's Kall was the excellent Lovecraftian cover, thus is shouldn't come as a surprise that the seven tracks contained in Dagon – the band's debut release – are odes to the Cthulu mythos.

What was immediately to strike me upon the opening barrage of " The Call of the Tyrant" is just how heavy the band actually sounded. Furthermore their grasp on the conventions of the death, doom, and traditional schools of metal is fairly impressive. They neatly fuse blasting, death metal style sections into jackhammer doom style grooves, all with a certain degree of traditional metal attitude that is revealed in many of the fist pumping riffs, or in the subtle use of melody.

Tyrant's Kall are a female-fronted act, and singer Esmee Tabasco delivers an interesting performance, channeling some almost watery growls which further back up the thematic, Cthulu mythos approach. On the flipside of the more aggressive vocals we have clean vocals clearly channeled from the school of acts such as Castle or Blood Ceremony. The approach works well, although I definitely prefer the aggressive vocals as they feel more in touch with the music.

Production is quite well handled, with largely focused songs, and an ace sound for a relatively new and unsigned act. The guitar tone has an acidic, boiling feel with rattles along coating venom on a wide array of kick ass riffs, which Dagon features in spades. The vocals are mixed in an enigmatic sort of way that completely works for Tyrant's Kall's sound, and the rhythm section sounds great, with thick bass and relatively good sounding drums. On the whole this is an ace release, with riffs in spades and a cool, tastefully done sound. Whilst the competition concerning female-fronted doom bands has been heating up of late, Tyrant's Kall provide something a little different, with their brand of slimy doom/death metal being well worth a look in. Lovecraft buffs will likely get a kick out of this, and fans of the genre will definitely find something of interest. Recommended.