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It's been nearly six years since Arryan Path issued their debut full-length album Road to Macedonia, an album that showed great promise but was considered a bit too cheesy. Well, with their follow-up album, Terra Incognita, the band has honed their compositions to a much more matured structure that brings in an epic sound to their story telling around mythology. The Cyprus based band, originally formed in the United States, clearly have put a lot of work into their latest album, and it really shows with beautiful constructed powerful tracks that any fans of this style will simply eat up from start to end, leading to one of the most addicting unknown album releases of 2010. The music on Terra Incognita is very powerful, treading very well into the realm of epic sounding music without being over the top. Not all the songs on here would fall into that category though, such as "Ishtar", but there's still plenty of tracks here that are simply moving from start to end, such as the starting track "Cassiopeia", and the title track "Terra Incognita". Both of these tracks are fantastic compositions that really layer on the roots of the band's heritage into the music, mostly through the use of keyboards to bring a feeling of the Cyprus region that this band is located at. Another positive aspect is that this band doesn't try to push the "epic" consideration further with extensive track lengths. "Cassiopeia" clocks in at just over nine minutes, which is perfectly fine as this song is very creative and well composed, causing the listener to be attentive the entire time without it getting dull at all. Aside that, there's also "Minas Tirith", the second longest track on here that hits six minutes in length. The rest of the album really seems to focus in on staying below the five minute mark, which is great since some of these tracks really shouldn't be extended period, as there is no need. "Ishtar" is a fantastic song that will have you singing along with it even after your first listen, and "Elegy" is a more ballad oriented track that flows so nicely with the slower guitars and accompanying keyboards to create a very professional sounding moving piece that is rarely seen in today's Power Metal culture since they often branch into over-the-top epicness, or are just too generic, both pushing traditional tracks such as this into a rather cheesy field. But, while songs like these exist, there are also times where you would wish the band would put just a little more effort into the music. While almost all of the album is simply phenomenal and has some really beautiful compositions, there are still some tracks that feel either a bit repetitive, or just a little too bland. "An Angel with No Destination" is a good example of this. While the song is not that bad, it just feels like the band took "Elegy" and amped it up a bit to give it a much heavier edge. Unfortunately, sometimes the music being played sounds empty at times, which leaves the vocals to push the song, but there's no extra emphasis on the vocals to do so, as they sound practically the same as the album started, leaving the track feeling a little more hollow then it should have been. "Minas Tirith" is also a little sketchy, but that simply because of how rough the song is compared to the rest of the album, creating a very dark atmosphere for just that specific song and causing it to feel a little out of place. It's also not that great a song in the long run, as the song will start to become a little boring due to the slower speed of the song, and the lack of anything really impressive musically. However, "The Mind", which is the closing track, is a nicely done slower paced track that winds up being more mellow then anything, while keeping with the general musical overtones of all the material on this release except for "Minas Tirith", leading to a nice exit for the album. It would have been nice to go out on a higher note like how Terra Icognita started, but this track does a good job at bidding the listener farewell. With only the ending of the album posing any real problems, Arryan Path has created a brilliant Power Metal album that was well worth the six year gap. if you have never heard of this band, then now is the time to introduce yourself to them. Even if you have and didn't like their first offering, a lot has changed over the years to make this band worthy of another shot regardless of your feelings to them prior to it's release. With music that is finely woven to incorporate the roots of the band members to influence th atmosphere of the song's lyrical foundations, there's no denying that Arryan Path's Terra Incognita is an album that should be further in the spot light then it is, and will almost undeniably prove to be an important, yet unknown metal releases. |
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