Review by Daniel for Tyrant (AUS) - Never Too Loud (1984)

I originally became a part of the Australian metal scene as a fresh-faced teenager in the very early 1990’s. I’d been a fan of hard rock & metal for a good couple of years by that point & would religiously attend all of the international tours that were taking place at the time but it took me discovering legendary Sydney thrash metal establishment Mortal Sin in 1989 to realise that there was a local scene that could compete with the overseas acts I’d fallen in love with over the previous few years. But once I started to associate with older metalheads, I soon started to develop a list of mythical band names who had reportedly played strong roles in developing our beloved metal landscape here in the land down under. Amongst those names was a group that went by the very common metal moniker of Tyrant & who surprisingly hailed from the unlikely location of Tasmania i.e. the island state that’s positioned off the bottom south/east corner of Australia. I don’t think I ever got the opportunity to hear a Tyrant record at the time but I was always acutely aware that they were in some way important. It’s only been in the last few years that I’ve finally ventured back to check out Tyrant’s earliest work in the four-song “Never Too Loud” E.P. which was very successful on a local level & led to a string of important gigs across the country during the mid-1980’s.

Tyrant began life in the Tasmanian capital city of Hobart in March 1983, the project of the two Zarins brothers (guitarist Andy & drummer Robert) with their neighbour Neil “Steel” Wilson handling the vocals. They originally went by the much less cool name of Slyder & were more of an AOR act but the excitement of the NWOBHM & a very strong local pub rock scene soon saw them giving in to the lure of heavier sounds which triggered the requirement for a name change. Second guitarist Grant Wallace & bassist Paul Hassman would be added to the lineup & Tyrant quickly became a mainstay of the Hobart rock scene, leading to the recording of this debut four-song release in 1984, a record that would gain the band a fair bit of exposure across the southern part of Australia in particular & would ultimately lead to Tyrant relocating to Sydney to chase rock stardom in 1985.

“Never Too Loud” is a fairly basic release really. The four songs are all pretty traditional in both style & structure with the production job being a little rough & presenting the songs in more of a demo context than a glossy, commercially-accessible radio rock package. There’s not much information around on “Never Too Loud” but I’m gonna assume that it was a self-financed affair as that’s what it sounds like to my ears but the sound quality is still clear enough to give the song-writing the chance to dig its hooks in.

The early Tyrant sound has one foot in each of the two camps that inspired it i.e. the NWOBHM & the Oz rock scene. The song-writing is structured in your classic hard rock verse/chorus style with the rhythm section maintaining a controlled, thumping mid-paced rock rhythm while the dual guitar attack draws its influence from the flashier heavy metal scene that was arguably at its absolute peak following its successful infiltration into the American market over the previous year or two. This combination works really well for Tyrant too & it’s probably not terribly surprising that a sound like that was going to appeal to the Aussie market either given that it gave the boys a really crunchy heavy metal sound that would work brilliantly in a live setting but was still easily relatable for your average Australian.

The four songs included are all of a pretty reasonable quality, although they admittedly don’t break any new ground & are all structured in a very familiar way. You can easily hear the influence of Aussie pub legends AC/DC, Rose Tattoo & The Angels in the anthemic hard rock hooks with the major emphasis being on the catchy, uncomplicated chorus lines. The guitar work is much more metal than those acts usually attempted though, drawing inspiration from hard rock-inspired heavy metal acts like Saxon & Accept as well the the early-1980’s Judas Priest albums. Frontman Wilson generally seems to be regarded as the protagonist of the Tyrant sound, possessing a clean & easily intelligible tone that I find to be more serviceable & acceptable than I do charismatic & exhilarating. In fact, I think that Wilson’s vocal limitations place a cap on the heights that “Never Too Loud” had the potential to reach to be honest as the crunchy instrumentation is well executed & was very much in line with what was popular in the global scene at the time. I can see how Wilson might have been a different prospect in a live environment though as he can certainly hold a tune & the whole package seems to have been tailored specifically for live performance.

I enjoy all four of the songs included on the E.P. to varying degrees. It’s really only the highly memorable “Thunder & Steel” that possesses the class required to see me feeling like I may return to it in the future though. Opener “War of the Roses”, the title track & closer “Lambs to the Slaughter” all have their moments but Tyrant’s music is generally always going to live & die by the quality of the chorus hooks with the rest of the song-writing all being presented as the entrées to the chorus’ main courses. For a country that was as isolated from the rest of the world as Australia was at the time though, “Never Too Loud” served its purpose nicely & I can see why people may have gotten a little hot under the collar for this rough-&-ready, working-class heavy metal. I’m glad that I’ve given the E.P. a couple of revisits now too as it feels like a reasonably important release in the Aussie metal story to me, even if I don’t think it’s strong enough to warrant me returning to it again in the future.

For fans of Saxon, Accept & early-1980's Judas Priest.