Battle Path are an Experimental/Doom/Sludge/Black Metal Band from Murfreesboro, TN, USA
The members are:
Adam Reed--Guitars, Ambience
Casey Stickney--Drums
Chase Hornsby--Guitars
Nathan Reed--Bass
Todd Harris--Vocals, Guitar
Battle Path have been on this blog before last year with their brilliant debut album - Storm & Stress. It was an album that I praised very highly and one which sturck a chord with many of you.
I have been a fan of this band ever since with their unique hard hitting blend style of Sludge, Black Metal, Doom and Hardcore Metal to portray a truly unflinching style of extreme metal. They are influenced by Sunn 0))), Wolves In The Throne Room and Neurosis.
And their music is a great style of those great bands but they are still their own band. Well a year later the guys are back with their most brutal and heaviest work to date - EMPIRIC.
Empiric is 4 songs long and runs for about 35 minutes or so. Battle Path have thrown caution to the wind and have embraced their darker side like ever before. The ambient riffs shown on the last album are here but not as much. They have almost been replaced with some more darker and more oppressive.
And this has paid off brilliantly. Batlle Path are heavier than ever but there is still some great Sludge/Black Metal riffs to be found.
1st track - Waking Hours is a 7:14 minute bleak odyssey of brutal riffs and down-tempo vocals to match that will show you what is in store for this excellent album. Channelling the bleak fast riffs of Wolves In The Throne Room but adding a great Neurosis type Sludge vibe to proceedings.
Whatever has made these guys more relentless from their excellent debut is here for all of us to listen to.
Next up is Closer. Another epic track full of fast and furious down-tempo Sludge/Black Metal carnage to pummel your senses to.
Up next is the best track on the album - The 11 minute epic- The Waiting. A track which adds some eerie ambient vibes before all hell breaks loose around the 3rd minute when the crunching guitars kicks in. This is a song with a foreboding sense of evil lurking in it's midst which is probably what Battle Path want you to feel. The vocals kick in around 7 mins and Todd handles another mighty fine performance on this track.
This is where the band show the most creativity on this track and shows what great musicians these guys actually are. Just buy this album for this track alone. Fucking amazing.
Finally we have another top-notch epic track - Silence. Which is anything but. This is where the band pay homage to Wolves In The Throne Room with their own take of fast-paced Black Metal riffs with a cool Sludge Metal vibe showing in places.
It's a great finish to a brilliant album that shows Battle Path have moved onto another level from their brilliant debut album. They are not afraid to take risks. They might alienate some of their fan-base with their harder style of Sludge/Black Metal but I think it pays off brilliantly well.
It shows Battle Path are an ever changing band open to new ideas even if it takes them further to the darker side of metal.
An excellent album from one of my fave Sludge/Black Metal bands on the scene today. Highly Recommended.
You can buy this on BandCamp Right Now.
You can still download their brilliant debut album Storm & Stress on BandCamp Pay Anything You Want Type Deal.
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