Silent Path     

Mourner Portraits

Hypnotic Dirge Records 2012

Straight from the distant lands of Iran is the blackened doom of Silent Path.  This one-man project combines fuzzed out guitars and mournful riffs with a lethargic pace to steal all warmth from your body.  The album opens with the circular, funeral march of Empty Earth.  Despondent moods permeate the slowly shuddering guitars and the icy synth.  The distorted vocals sound as if the singer was buried in a watery grave.  Filth Of Mankind concentrates on a sorrowful melodic phrase and those cruel, unfeeling vocals in order to fill you with complete hopelessness.  The track collapses completely into despair as all the layers fade into a single guitar riff and then rise up once more to embrace you with blanket of melancholy.  Broken Trees is a nocturnal journey of slowly undulating riffs that caress like a soft fog.  The vocals are a dense wall of impenetrable coldness which are accentuated by the ethereal synth patterns.  However Forgotten Sounds takes the listener through moments of calm and playful discovery as subtle keyboards and ambient noise weave an enchanting spell.  Veering back towards the traditional framework of the main portion of the album, Sarabe Aramesh uses spoken samples and traditional doom melodies to fell any vestiges of joy left within the listener.  Air raid sirens and despondent guitar usher in Epic Suicide.  The guitar riffs slowly build into a rhythmic beast of lethargic and suicidal doom and remains my favorite track on the album.  The song ends with a sample of a Churchill speech regarding the death of Hitler.  Seems mildly out of place, but no matter.  When taken as a whole, Mourner's Portraits is a slow erosion of joy.  With each consecutive song, life becomes a little bleaker until you are robbed of all compassion and comfort and left wallowing in deep despair.  Bury yourself in this album only if you wish to be left devoid of hope.