Wednesday 5 November 2014

Sorrows Path - Doom Philosophy (CD Review)


01.First Beam Of Darkness Into Light
02.Tragedy
03.A Dance With The Dead
04.Brother Of Life
05.Everything Can Change
06.The King With A Crown Of Thorns
07.The Venus And The Moon
08.Epoasis
09.Clouds Inside Me
10.Darkness
11.Damned (O)fish-L.S.D



Stavros Giannakos (Bass)
Angelos Ioannidis (Vocals)
Fotis Mountouris (Drums)
Kostas Salomidis (Guitar)
Giannis Tziligkakis (Guitar)

Guests
Snowy Shaw (Vocals on 'Everything Can Change')
Edgar Rivera (Guitar on 'Tragedy')
Vangelis Yalamas (Bass/Classical Guitar/Synthersizer)
Lefteris Moros (Drums On "Damned")
Katerina Nikoloudi (Female Vocals)
Barbara Michaloutsou (Spoken Words on 'Darkness')


Greek Doom Metal band 'Sorrows Path' was formed by Takis Drakopoulos and Kostas Salomidis back in November 1993. Both being inspired by bands like Memento Mori, Solitude Aeturnus and Candlemass and shortly after Angelos Ioannidis and Kostas Farmakis joined them, the band began rehearsing and composing material.

January 1995 “Sorrows Path”, the band’s first demo, was released but shortly after that, Kostas Farmakis decided to leave the band and while the band was in a search of a new drummer Takis Drakopoulos tragically died.

Angelos and Kostas decided to continue with band and so after recruiting Stavros Giannakos on bass and Gregory Vlachos on drums released in May 1996 a new demo simply entitled “Promo 96".

After a break of some seven years they returned and finally released their first album.
By 2009 a new guitarist Giannis Tziligkakis joined in order to fulfil the band’s vision for a solid and heavier sound that the new material demanded.

I reviewed their album 'The Rough path Of Nihilisim' back in October 2012, i said at the time that the vocalist sounded like Snowy Shaw who is a guest on this latest album and also remember saying that i felt they were more symphonic than doom, so i am looking forward to hitting "play".


'Tragedy' starts us off and have to say the band sound just as good as last time, a clever mix of Symphonic metal with doom elements, quite atmospheric due to a spooky vocal style and yes he does still sound like Mr Shaw !

The next couple of songs are borderline Power Metal, then comes the symphonic meatl of 'Everything Can Change' and what an amazing vocal performance from both vocalists and really like the 60's sounding keyboard in the mix.

'Epoasis' is a really great stand out song as well, mixing doom and symphonic elements well and a great spoken piece in the middle, lots of timing changes and nice piano and phased guitar playing!

So another top class album, but one i still dont really think is "Doom" i'm sticking with "Symphonic Metal".

Rating 10/10
For Fans Of: Snowy Shaw, Therion, Paradise Lost, De Profundis

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