1349 "The Infernal Pathway"
1349
"The Internal Pathway"
It's been quite a while since we've heard from these guys, one of the last great Norwegian black metal bands. Is "The Infernal Pathway" worth the wait or does it fizzle like wet brimstone?
The answer is somewhat in the middle. Right off the bat I will say this is not the soul-crushing comeback that it could have been. But these guys are too experienced and professional to put out anything really bad. I was hoping for something in the vein of their all-time classic "Hellfire" but this isn't it. This record has a strong thrash feeling mixed with the usual Norwegian BM sound and the production is very dry. Not awful, but not what you'd expect. "Abyssos Antithesis" opens with an almost straight heavy metal feel with moderate speed before finally hitting the gas big time and becoming a furious, technical slab of thrashing black metal. Some very ambitious guitar playing from Archaon here and as usual the drumming from Frost is just ridiculously intense. Second track "Through Eyes of Stone" retains the speed but just sounds like boilerplate filler with nothing special.
Throughout the course of "The Infernal Pathway", we get treated to three meaningless "Tunnel of Set" interludes that don't amount to a hill of beans. Nothing is proven by simple ambient stuff like this. "Enter Cold Void Dreaming" emerges as the standout of the album...absolutely ripping black metal with jaw-dropping time changes and ice cold riffs. This is the 1349 that can dominate the scene. "Towers upon Towers" has an almost IMMORTAL feeling to the riffs, a trait that also shows up in "Striding The Chasm". This latter track is another corker, an epic amalgam of thrash, IMMORTAL majesty and standard 1349 grimness. But then "Dodskamp" is another average tune with a more "freezing" dissonant sound and "Stand Tall In Fire" ends the album on a disappointing note. It's rather sluggish and not even close to the scorching power of the almighty "Hellfire", the band's best song of years ago.
Kind of a mixed bag from 1349. Definitely worthy of the legacy in spots, but formulaic in others. Good but not essential.
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