I guess it's safe to say that Greece's Sorrows Path are on the same track as Candlemass, respectively Solitude Aeternus, with their brand of Doom that is tinged with a healthy dose of all things that make general Heavy Metal worthwhile. This 2010 debut has been long in the making, the band's career being overshadowed by death and hardship, which sounds almost cliché in connection to a scene that displays just these topics on its banners, all too often in garish colours.
For Sorrows Path though, its done way more classy almost all the way through. „All Love Is Lost“ starts of and ends on an acoustic or rather non-distorted note, the epic wedged in between consisting of oriental-sounding melodies, keyboard-strings and a dramatic chorus. The lyrics don't stay on the doomy middle of the road (oddly focusing sexual motifs), while singer Angelos Ioannidis cannot free himself from a slightly affect almost too theatratical timbre …
… which suits him well in the sinister „The Beast“ (a song about a rapist in this reviewer's eyes) and less so in „Honestly“ or „Dirty Game“, although maybe this impression is due to the fact that by time, Sorrows Paths concept seems a bit one-sided despite their advances into progressive territory with organ playing, tempo changes („Getting Closer“, a playful highlight) and the truly ambitious guitar playing: We know Kostas Salomidis not only as a passionate music lunatic, but can hear him as a versatile and virtuous player himself. The remarkable main riff of „Fetish“ prooves this just as well as the melodies of lushly orchestrated quasi-genre-hymn „Queen Of Doom“.
These being the positives sides of „The Rough Paths Of Nihilism“, the partly too similar song structures are a letdown which surely owes to long time it cost the band to put this album together. „Mr. Holy“, „Empty Eyes And Blackened Hearts“ or „Prostitute“, for example, trudge along without making too much impact, but also not tilting the overall impression to the negative. „Hymn Of Differentiation“ in fact entirely leaves the Doom territory and follows the same route as countrymates such as Karmik Link or Wastefall: woeful Prog which Greece has always been renowned for apart from its illustrious Black Metal history. Be certain that this combo will make more interesting and versatile noise on their second full lenght, which is currently in the making; for now, this is a still decent enough effort which has not aged much since it has been released.
words by Andreas Schiffmann
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