Arrayan Path - Thus Always to Tyrants

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Mediterranean band Arrayan Path really has me at a loss for words with their newest album "Thus Always to Tyrants" whose album name I am pretty sure is a reference to John Wilkes Booth before he shot Abraham Lincoln(I guess that's heavy metal though?) … Nonetheless, They are good musicians and I give them credit for that. I personally am not a fan of this band's name Arrayan Path either(yes I read the press release), and I really don’t see their intro track “Oh Dark Tears(Aftermath)” or any others for that matter breaking any new ground. The album art is ok. I liked the Wizard holding a sword and staff on the cover.

Track two “The Usurper” tries to have a Medieval sound but it honestly ends up falling short and sounding like a Monty Python skit. The part in track three “The Kings Aegis They came from the Taygetos Mountains” at five minutes where they say “Here comes the Spartans” this really had me cracking up with memories of the movie 300 with Gerard Butler kicking a guy into a pit saying “this isn't madness this is Sparta!!!” The next track on the album “The Battle of Cridus” really wasn’t anything I wanted to tell my friends about. I like how I can understand the lyrics but I just think the lead singer “Nicholas Leptos” seems like a talented singer to me I just think they sing way to high pitched and it would sound better if they did more vocals like in track five “Artaxerxe II Mnemon” at 1:24, or even the intro. Just my personal opinion.

Moving on to Track number six “Crossing over to Phoenicia” was a really pleasant sounding song overall but I felt there wasn’t a lot of substance to it, “it's just every other metal song inspired by Iron Maiden” I kept thinking to myself. Until something new hit(not that “In Salamis” was bad, it's just not my favorite track on the album) , which was track number Eight “Raid of the Achaemenids” which had me pleasantly surprised by its intro. Well done boys! This might be my favorite track on the album so far actually. Songs like this are reminiscent of bands like Rush , though I think they actually qualify as “Doom Metal”. Either way I was quite impressed by this track in terms of overall creativity.

Track number nine “Of Royal Ancestry” I really actually enjoyed, I could actually see this band being pretty good if I were to see them live. It was well written and well produced. Stuff like this would be a cool addition to a graphic novel like Head Lopper or something of that caliber. The synthesizer and guitar solo by Socractes Leptos which starts at 3:30 I particularly enjoyed and think something like this would be perfect for the next volume. The next track “ The legend of Evagoras” was a beautiful ballad and the lyrical quality of lead singer Nicholas Leptos really shines here from 00:35 to 02:00. As for track eleven “Army of Myrmidons return to troy part II” I don’t really see what's not to like about this song, it's pretty cool actually, all in all I gotta give the whole band kudos for this track, very solid musicianship and songwriting here as well as being very well produced.

Track number twelve “Deny/Destroy(Parts I&II) From a King to a King (CD Bonus)”which is a bonus track I wasn’t very impressed by overall, but their drummer Stefan Dittrich sounds pretty good on this track though at various parts so I definitely recommend checking this out if your into this kind of Iron Maiden/Doom Metal/ Metallica vibes. All in all I thought this band was pretty good but their name is seriously holding them back!

Songwriting: 8
Musicianship: 8
Memorability: 8
Production: 10