Tytus - Rain After Drought (Fighter Records)

Italians Tytus promise nothing more than a riotous romp through the undergrowth of eighties metal; and in that respect they succeed magnificently on second album Rain After Drought.
In fact on tracks like Our Time is Now they offer a glimpse of the seventies as viewed through the prism of modern rockers like Gygax; but for the most part RaD is, well, a rad mashup of NWoBHM and early thrash influences.

That’s right – there’s not a lot of individuality or indeed originality flowing through the grooves of this record, but there is conviction, and bags of skill, both of which count for an awful lot in a market becoming ever-more saturated with well-meaning yet largely faceless bands of the same ilk.

Best track The Dark Wave is basically Iron Maiden’s Drifter exhumed and given a sharper haircut, with Mark Simon Hell and Illija Riffmeister both acquitting themselves well in the axe department whilst drummer Bardy proves that hours spent listening to Clive Burr is indeed a useful deployment of time.

Death Throes adds that thrash influence I mentioned to the mix, the doomy intro referencing early Megadeth with steely-eyed aplomb, but overall the balance of the material here is much more British in origin. And of course, as a celebration of the NWoBHM the inclusion of an instrumental track was inevitable – but it has to be said that Rain After Drought pt 1 is absolutely without fault.

My colleague Ferry Templeton is a big fan of these boys, and it has to be said there’s a lot of fun to be had here if you still consider a denim cutoff held together by band patches to be an essential part of anybody’s wardrobe. Well put together, skilfully executed, and a lot of fun to listen to, Rain After Drought is a nice piece of work, for sure… and with a tad more concentration on originality rather than mere devout copycatting, you’d think a bright future awaits Tytus as future Euro metal standard bearers.