The Path Seldom Mortal Goes

Man, the odds sure seemed stacked against this thing being good. The band’s genre is “epic symphonic power metal?” Good luck getting that one right on the first try. Oh wait, the average song length is north of eight minutes, including an attempt at a 15-minute track? Sounds like epic symphonic progressive power metal to me, an even taller order for any inexperienced band to pull off. Throw in both an album cover and a production job that give The Path Seldom Mortal Goes—a title that isn’t even coherent English—the feel of a low-budget album from 25 years prior to its 2009 release date, and one would be forgiven for going into this thing expecting to give a “nice try guys, but you’ve got a whole lot of work to do” response.

But that is not the story of the sole product these guys ever put out, for The Path Seldom Mortal Goes surprisingly does justice to all of those genre adjectives on its way to becoming a strong and compelling listen. It’s a fascinating album, and a testament to how lo-fi production doesn’t necessarily sink a band with even the most epic of intentions.

This is a quite complex album, but really, the reasons it succeeds are quite simple: the music is well-written and interesting, and the performances are very strong. I’m not sure I’d call this power metal at all: it really is quite progressive, with very linear structures (think A-B-C-D-E-F rather than the A-B-A-B-C-B verse-chorus stuff) that twist and turn, changing tempo and instrumentation frequently within songs. Sections appear a maximum of twice in a song, and the vocal sections don’t even really sound like “verses” or “choruses” at all. There isn’t that sense of building to a repeated refrain, but rather one of just getting to the next step of the epic journey.

The trick with such linear and progressive songwriting is that everything has to be good—if even twenty percent of the ideas don’t really catch, the songs become undermined because the transitions start to seem really jarring and arbitrary. But though some ideas on here undeniably are better than others, the songs generally flow nicely, and ideas don’t really stay put for more than a few seconds anyway, so there’s rarely a full minute where nothing interesting happens.

As for the performances, they range from strong to quite heroic. Vocalist Lodovico Rossi leads the way with a flourishing, expressive performance, ranging from strong balladic midrange vocals to the kind of whistle-clean highs that Alessandro Conti is known for, and does a lot to tie this thing together. But he’s actually only responsible for maybe 70% of the vocals on this album, as the other 30% are done by a symphonic choir that filters in and out of every song. The choir parts aren’t the same sort of highlights as Rossi’s vocals, but they set the mood effectively and are well-executed. Rossi and the choir only sing together on a couple of occasions, which I wish they did a little more—one of the rare exceptions is what you might call the chorus of “Winds of Uncertainty,” which might be the best section on the whole album. Again, as this really doesn’t have a typical verse-chorus feel, Rossi’s vocals don’t sink into huge, obvious hooks as in a lot of power metal, but the melodies are thought-out and engaging nonetheless.

Rossi is nearly equaled by a particularly strong set of guitar solos from Giovanni Nardi, which come in at fairly judicious junctures but nearly always are highlights, providing a good union of technical mastery and melodic fit. Nardi’s riffs are less spectacular, especially as they’re seemingly buried under Danilo Fiorucci’s active bass about half of the time, but there are several moments where he puts together some strong rhythm work in the power and progressive realms as well. Fiorucci, as I just alluded to, is very high in the mix (it really does call back to that early-80s feel production-wise, where the instruments are all clear but lack modern sharpness), and he has some interesting moments, as does his rhythm section partner Niccolò Franchi. Keyboardist Gregorio Chiarione adds a diverse set of patches to the mix, highlighted by strong piano work, some dramatic string sections, and a couple of nice solo spots.

If there’s a weakness on the album that can’t be ascribed to its low recording and production budget, it’s that the band puts a slight overemphasis on slower balladic sections. Some of them are great, but they crop up a little too often, especially in the 15-minute epic “The Council,” which spends over half its runtime at a plod. There are a few occasions, especially on this track, where the band has a lot of momentum at a more typical pace, only to seemingly cut it off for no reason to return to balladry. Still, Rossi’s vocals often make these sections engaging, and there aren’t any pure ballads on here—every song brings symphonic bombast to at least a decent chunk of its runtime.

Though The Path Seldom Mortal Goes might initially seem destined for amateurish results, Mystic Twilight clearly boasts both a strong, ambitious, and inventive musical vision and the talent to carry it off well in spite of some significant production deficiencies for the style. It’s a path well worth journeying down.