Chronicles of Light

Greece's Arrayan Path were not a band I was much aware of until their superb last album Stigmata, but now I think they're one of the best of their genre. This new album Chronicles of Light takes the things they did right on Stigmata, among them pounding riffs, epic, unique songs and complex vocal lines, and expands on them with a greater sense of their identity as a band.

This band is really left-of-center for the power metal genre, without the usual speed and uplifting themes the genre has used as a cornerstone – instead, Arrayan Path are all about the slow build. These guys write songs built on big, foreboding melodies and the powerful vocals of frontman Nicholas Leptos, who has kind of quietly become a first-rate singer in the genre. He just rules on this, with a ton of charisma and steely, powerful wails over the music's tapestry of Maidenesque galloping guitar leads, Symphony X-style chugs and orchestral, somber textures.

This is a heavier and more traditional metal-sounding album than Stigmata, with a bit less focus on keys and more grit and muscle. The songwriting is excellently snappy, with lots of great hooks that tend to catch in your head more and more upon repeated listens – it's not music that you like or understand right away, but it will keep you coming back if you're into dark, somber heavy metal. I love that these guys just have their own instantly identifiable, signature sound – you couldn't mistake any of these songs for any other band. On opener “Solomon Seed” or the seven-minute “Lex Talionis,” they write idiosyncratic, hooky melodies that you'll be singing for days. "Solomon Seed" really does set the tone for the album. With its jagged verses and shouted vocal lines seguing into a gloomy chorus melody, it grabs your attention instantly and you know the band isn't going to half-ass you. That's an important tone to set for the beginning of any album, and the rest of this follows suit with striking, original material. “The Distorted Looking-Glass” is a crunching prog monster, “Orientis” is a speedy riff-killer and the title track rules with intricate, headstrong melodies. “Scorpio” is some kind of cover song, but its big, wide, sing-along chorus makes it a perfect centerpiece for the album and a nice breather before the darker, longer songs in the last half of the album.

If Arrayan Path have a flaw, it's that sometimes the multitude of slow, brooding midtempo songs can get cloying if one is in the mood for something faster or more energetic. But the band has enough rich, textured melodies in those songs to make them worth going back to anyway – the fact that they can write several of these kinds of songs in a row and still remain engaging shows their talent. The guitar sound on this is a bit too dry and thin, but the vocals sound huge, sometimes with a kind of subtle echo to them like Leptos is shouting the lines in the middle of some old Roman coliseum – check out the chorus of the title track or the vocal-led bit on “Lex Talionis” for that. It's a really excellent use of sound and atmosphere, and it's those little details that make the album a treat that rewards careful listens.

I just think this is a great band. Arrayan Path isn't ever going to please those who like the usual cheeseball, all-speed type of power metal, but if you just love heavy, dark, weird music, this band is first rate. I think these guys are one of the best new power metal bands going. I hope to see many more albums from them in the future.

Formed by brothers from Cyprus, Nicholas and Socrates Leptos in America in the late 90s, Arrayan Path has a from the beginning had a little trouble perfecting their sound. The vocals in my opinion have always been their strong suit ever since their debut album. One of my biggest complaints in the past have been unidentifiable guitar riffs and repetitive one-line choruses, but with each successive album their songs have been slowly getting more memorable, their choruses have become more expansive, and the riffs have started to progress for the better.

With their 2016 release Chronicles of Light, Nicholas's vocals continue to be the brightest spot in the band for me personally, though I was initially thrown off by the first track. The vocals to the first verse seem a little bland and kind of nu-metalled up at points and we have a pretty bland and basic chugging guitar riff through pretty much the entire song. Just when I was tempted to skip the track though they really deliver with a very nice chorus with extremely well layered vocals. The solo goes back to being pretty random and there really aren't many salvageable guitar parts from the beginning. Without the chorus I would say this song would be easily skippable, which is kind of sad because it does make the song quite memorable all on its own.

As you continue on through the album you keep finding really nice choruses, but certain parts of the songs just seem off. For example, in The Distorted Looking Glass there are some really poorly placed harsh vocals that pretty much kill any momentum the song had built up from a really nice and well layered chorus. Also it takes to about the fourth track, Orientis before we get to any remotely memorable guitar riffs, which still come off sounding like basic Pantera worship followed up by a jumbled mess that attempts to be passed off as a solo and the most repetitive chorus on the album. However one thing Arrayan Path has always done right is slow paced pseudo-ballads. Nicholas Leptos has a really nice voice for lighter songs and Socrates is a much more competent guitarist when he plays slower and cleaner. Because of this the real bright spots on the album are definitely Ignore the Pain and December, sadly there isn't much else like it. They have what I'd consider to be the most emotion and the best solo by far. December personally comes off sounding like a song that wouldn't be out of place on the first Avantasia - Metal Opera album. Probably the biggest downfall of the entire album is that I'd only consider there to be only one really good riff, which takes all the way til the seventh track Lex Talionis to present itself. Having a really nice gallop to it, it's something I feel the band should do more of than just basic groove metal worship.

Chronicles of Light certainly does have a few driving aspects to make the album enjoyable, mainly very nicely performed clean, relatively high vocals that are layered consistently by well produced backing vocals, extremely memorable expanded choruses, and some rather nice and soulful solos on the lighter songs. There are also quite a few downfalls, namely the severe lack of riffs and misplaced harsh vocals that bring this album way lower than it could potentially be with a little work. Normally a very memorable chorus is all I need to be content with an album, but this has potential to be great and just kind of falters and never really takes off until the last couple tracks.

Originally written for The Metal Pit