Review by Felix on June 4, 2024.

Let's say your first thought is to make a record. If the second idea is that absolutely nobody should buy this album, then deface the cover with a badly drawn boar playing the guitar. But okay, please forget my useless vision, nobody would ever come up with such a shitty idea.

Tyrant’s third work shows the very cool, extremely casual version of the band. Guitarist Carl Tomaschko is now “King Carl” (awesome!) and suddenly Michael Budde operates under the name “Micky Budde” (less awesome, but still great!). In view of so much coolness, second guitarist Holger Thile had left the band… All this bullshit culminates in the embarrassing “Rock Your Bottom”, the calibration to the mainstream that has become sound. Quiet Riot fans, please sing this chorus as loud as you can and hope that it becomes a chart breaker (by the way, it was not). What a pile of shit. Actually, I didn’t want to continue listening. But to my surprise, Tyrant turn the corner quickly. “Breakout” is a relatively explosive speed metal eruption, straight, sharp and fast. This is the face of the Teutonic Tyrant I want to see many more times. The song is free from ridiculous “hu ha” background vocals and moronic lyrics. It’s just a more or less humourless German headbanger, nothing special, but something good. Those of you who like Noisehunter’s “Fever” will love this track as well. But it is not only “Breakout” that shows the speed metal affinity of Tyrant, “Fire at Sea”, equipped with a thrilling bridge and a strong solo, cracks some heads too. It’s true, despite the unbelievably stupid artwork and the gruesome opener, Tyrant present themselves in more or less proper form on “Running Hot”.

Surely, the album doesn’t give me sleepless nights from excitement, but I respect the robust guitar lines and I try to ignore some extremely flat lyrics (“hey boys, rock the city”). The output benefits from a vital, well-balanced production which doesn’t lack directness and the fact that the worst track has been put on the first position makes it easy to enjoy the remaining nine songs. More or less all of them boast with a profound heaviness somewhere between early Steeler, early Rage and the already mentioned Noisehunter. This doesn’t mean that the full-length is free from run of the mill songs, but they aren’t annoying, stupid or completely lacklustre. Sure, it's presumptuous that three songs from the album were later released on a sampler called “The Best of German Heavy Metal”. But who takes these titles seriously? All in all, “Running Hot” is a musically solid work, no more, no less. Astonishing, if a pig really did play the guitar.

Rating: 6.3 out of 10