Artist: Galactic Tyrannosaur
Album: Super Void
Label: Independent
Release Date: 22/01/2021
Country: United States
Next up we took a look at Galactic Tyrannosaur and his latest album Super Void, which will be independently released on January 22nd.
For anyone who isn’t aware, Galactic Tyrannosaur is a one-man project from Kentucky, from the mind of Eric Evans. Describing the project’s sound is no easy feat, as Eric combines doom metal, sludge, metalcore, groove and heavy metal elements. It’s not every day that you heard a band that simultaneously sounds like Sleep, Bathory, Lamb of God, Crypt Sermon and Ereb Altor. We actually reviewed his previous release Songs to Sing in the Graveyard, which you can review here.
While I mentioned all of those above influences when describing the project, these sounds span multiple albums and Galactic Tyrannosaur’s sound is ever changing. For example for this particular release he’s chosen to focus on heavy metal, metalcore and death metal with a progressive element, stripping away those groovy, doomy elements. That could have something to do with who the album is dedicated to, that being Eric’s grandmother who passed away in December of 2019 and his grandfather who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s a few weeks later and continues to battle the disease daily. A struggle I understand fully as my grandfather is fighting the same battle. The reason I mention this is that this album clearly has a certain level of emotion and passion to it and there is a reason for that, because it focuses on themes relating to these events and is deeply personal for Eric. If you focus on the lyrics of songs such as Somewhere Out There this will also become clear.
The album starts with a peaceful interlude but kicks right into gear with the opening track Constricted In The Tesla Coil, which is available to listen to now. Prepare to get hit with some truly catchy riffs played with a high energy. Meanwhile the vocals sit somewhere between metalcore and death metal in nature.
The majority of the album sits somewhere in a blended area of metalcore, heavy metal and death metal. Certain tracks lean more into particular styles than others and some blend them evenly. What I will say is that the clean vocals on the album still remind me of Bathory and Crypt Sermon in vocal sound, but they are performed in a very different style on this particular release than on previous ones. The somewhat echoed effect applied to these vocals is a very nice touch and gives them distinctive sound and atmosphere of their own. The harsher vocals are a blend between shouted and harsher vocals and blur the lines between metalcore and death metal at times. The guitar work is a blend of various influences but definitely does contain less groove elements than his previous releases.
There are still some doom elements in the mix, and they shine through in parts, with the songs Like A Plague and The Light in particular containing a lot of them. The final track on the album, Somewhere Out There really stands out from the others in that its a piano ballad and the most emotional on the release. As mentioned earlier the lyrics of this song focus on dementia but discussing it using space-based metaphors.
Overall, this was a solid album and ended up being very different to what I expected after the project’s previous releases. For me personally this wasn’t my favourite release from the project, but that isn’t a criticism of the album’s quality. Personally, I just preferred the doomier, groovier elements on the previous albums. I’m sure that there will be many who disagree and really enjoy this new direction. I personally am just not the biggest metalcore fan so for me those elements were a little lost on me. On the whole though, the album was well written and well played and performed musically and the themes and lyrical concepts were fantastic. One of the greatest strengths of the album is the level of passion and emotion that went into it and these are feelings that I understand and mirror having similar experiences, so I believe that this album will connect with a lot of people on that level. So, give it a spin today and see what you think.
Listen to and order the full album below:
