The Way

Once more, Finnish infamous black metal musician 'Armath Sargon', starts a new project to release his creativity upon this world. While many of his bands/projects have additional members, this project only has Armath on instruments. The whole idea behind this project was to create a different sound than he does with his main project 'Armath Sargon'. This time Armath wanted to create more of a full band sound and using different guitars than on his main project. Sometimes I wonder where it will end with his bands; but he continues to produce decent music so lets have a look at this disc.

The album starts with a typical intro wandering towards the classical edge but that doesn't last long and before the first two minutes of the disc ends title track 'The Way' starts. This song has both faster and slow paced sections. The slow-paced sections have nice leads to set a certain mood and take their time to repeat. After the slow parts minimal keyboards accompany the background while the drums and guitars go on. The second song goes a bit the same way, after a clean intro; atmospheric riffs come in fast paced with again the keyboards accompanying the background. The whole album has this kind of structure; but it doesn't get monotonous because of different elements thrown in some places.

Basically this album is about atmosphere. Armath tries to achieve this atmosphere by using keyboards, more melancholic leads and quite some repetition. He even uses some clean singing on some songs, although I don't think they fit very well at times and he should try to do some high-pitched screams once. Instead, his vocals sound more as harsh whispers in the wind. But his vocals fit his style of writing and production so that is not really a negative thing. One negative aspect might be the drum computer he uses. It is not really disturbing but hopefully he can find someone to do acoustic drums for his music. It would definitely be worth the music, the guitar has a clean bearable sound but not polished; and even the bass can be heard rumbling on the background.

My favourite song of the album would be 'Master of the Life'. After many tempo changes and a more uplifting keyboard melody; at the 5:50 minute mark a very easing and nostalgic riff kicks in with spoken vocals above them. This is a very dreamy part of the song and goes on for 2:30 until the songs ends. Although this is supposed to be a black metal album, it is a very relieving song. Two more technical songs are also present on the album, 'Lacrimosa' and 'Life in Christ or Dead by Hell', these don't really seem to fit, but are nice for those who want some variation. Although my personal preference is atmosphere. 'Weight of the World' is a nice mesh up of both atmosphere and tempo change and change of rhythms.

The final song 'Son of the David' is dedicated to the Son of God and closes this album in slow-paced music with an almost doomy sound. The chorus has a mournful sound just as a traditional mourn hymn. It repeats many times and is a cry for forgiveness. With that being said, the album ends in a pure way with an endless float of dreams about all the things you thought to be, and longing for more than the bitterness in life.