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Serpentine Path Stream New Album Emanations in Full

Posted in audiObelisk on May 27th, 2014 by JJ Koczan

When it comes to Emanations, the second long-player from metro NYC-based Serpentine Path, you’re probably going to hear a lot of people talk about how dark it is. How extreme. How their death-sludge sounds even more like some kind of East River pollution tar pit that’s growing by the year and smells like decay. Okay, maybe that last one you won’t hear all the time, but you get my point. It’s fucking dark. What you’re not going to hear people talk about is the obvious glee the band — who probably qualify for supergroup status with vocalist Ryan Lipynski (ex-Unearthly Trance, The Howling Wind), guitarists Tim Bagshaw (ex-Ramesses) and Stephen Flam (Winter), bassist Jay Newman (ex-Unearthly Trance) and drummer Darren Verni (ex-Unearthly Trance), though I’m not sure if they’ve filled out the proper paperwork to be certified — have for the miseries they create. They’re well enough hidden, but in the soloing at the end of “Torment” or the unmitigated stomp that follows, or in the twisted hook of the preceding “Systematic Extinction,” it’s there. Just because a band is skull-cavingly heavy doesn’t mean they can’t also have a good time.

Maybe that’s not the thing to say, but when I listen to a song like the mournful “Treacherous Waters” and cringe at the grueling, malevolent churn that Serpentine Path have crafted as the follow-up to their 2012 self-titled debut (discussed here), it sounds as much like the band is celebrating their extremity as much as they’re using it to create bleak, abrasive soundscapes. It’s not like Serpentine Path are writing joke songs and goofing around, but neither is their deep-low-end viciousness delivered without passion. Emanations is not a cold album, and that separates it from a lot of extreme metal, which comes across as plenty heavy, but also clinical and more concerned with technique than atmosphere. As if to begin in direct contrast to the very idea, the way opener “House of Worship” hits immediately, no intro, and launches into its first verse is practically punk rock, just twisted into slow grinding and given a sludgy groove that, as “Treacherous Waters” and “Claws” move into the highlight cut “Disfigured Colossus,” answers back the depressive melodicism of ’90s Euro-doom with a gritty, particularly dismal reinterpretation that’s as nasty as anything that’s come before it.

They don’t take much longer than that first verse to distinguish themselves and set the course for what’s to play out over Emanations‘ seven-song/45-minute span, but in kind with the classic death metal sensibilities evoked by the music as much as the cover art, the wretched psychedelia they create is an abyss of deceptive depth, and one that warrants a headphone listen to experience correctly. Their tales may be morbid, and they may tell them with a lumbering brutality, but Serpentine Path also stand for the excellent end results that can occur with an assemblage of those whose joy derives from such dark artistry. And with the addition of Flam since the release of the self-titled, the continued chemistry of Lipynski, Newman and Verni bled over from Unearthly Trance, as well as the lethally heavy collaboration with Bagshaw which is all the more cohesive this second time out, they have plenty to be glad about with the crushing filth they’ve created.

The album is out today on Relapse and I have the honor of streaming it in full. Find it below and please enjoy:

Here is the Music Player. You need to installl flash player to show this cool thing!

Serpentine Path‘s Emanations was recorded by Jay Newman and is available now on Relapse Records LP, CD and digital. For more info, check the links.

Serpentine Path on Thee Facebooks

Relapse Records

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audiObelisk Transmission 036

Posted in Podcasts on May 14th, 2014 by JJ Koczan

Click Here to Download

 

Here is the Music Player. You need to installl flash player to show this cool thing!

It was getting on two in the morning last night and I was yet again trying to figure out how to get the audio editing software I use to make podcasts to work on this laptop. Numerous failed downloads later, I decided screw it, I had nothing to lose, and I zipped up the directory containing the program on my old computer, WeTransfered it to myself, and unzipped it on the newer machine. Frickin’ worked. I couldn’t believe it. Proof that sometimes the stupidest solution of all is the way to go.

This is the first new podcast in a long time, I know. There’s been a lot of really cool stuff coming out in the last few months, but I wanted to still keep it as recent as possible. Some of this is out now and has been for a couple weeks, some of it isn’t out yet. I think it’s a good mix or I wouldn’t have uploaded it, and it gets pretty heavy for a while there, so watch yourself. Figured a good couple of rockers to open wouldn’t meet any complaints either, and hopefully that’s the case. Please enjoy.

First Hour:
Fu Manchu, “Radio Source Sagittarius” from Gigantoid (2014)
Radio Moscow, “Death of a Queen” from Magical Dirt (2014)
Abramis Brama, “Blåa Toner” from Enkel Biljett (2014)
The Ultra Electric Mega Galactic, “Spoonful” from Through the Dark Matter (2014)
Boris, “Heavy Rain” from Noise (2014)
Eyehategod, “Robitussin and Rejection” from Eyehategod (2014)
Serpentine Path, “House of Worship” from Emanations (2014)
Triptykon, “Boleskine House” from Melana Chasmata (2014)
Wovenhand, “Field of Hedon” from Refractory Obdurate (2014)
Been Obscene, “Memories of Salvation” from Unplugged (2014)
1000mods, “Reverb of the New World” from Vultures (2014)
Electric Citizen, “Light Years Beyond” from Ghost of Me b/w Light Years Beyond (2014)

Second Hour:
Mars Red Sky, “The Light Beyond” from Stranded in Arcadia (2014)
Salem’s Pot, “Creep Purple” from Lurar Ut Dig På Prärien (2014)
Black Bombaim, “Arabia” from Far Out (2014)
Dopelord, “Pass the Bong” from Black Arts, Riff Worship and Weed Cult (2014)
Holly Hunt, “Prometheus” from Prometheus (2014)

Total running time: 2:01:21

 

Thank you for listening.

Download audiObelisk Transmission 036

 

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Serpentine Path to Release Second Album Emanations on May 27

Posted in Whathaveyou on April 2nd, 2014 by JJ Koczan

I’ve called bands supergroups for way less than ties to Electric Wizard, Winter and Unearthly Trance, but when it comes to New York-based Serpentine Path, what’s exciting about them isn’t what the component members have done before so much as what they’ll do together going forward. Their 2012 self-titled debut (review here) delighted in blurring the lines between death metal, doom and sludge, and the upcoming Emanations — set for release May 27 on Relapse — will arrive heralded by the potential they showed the first time out to push into further extremity.

Album info and a trailer with song clips follows, having oozed its way down the PR wire:

SERPENTINE PATH: Info On Second Relapse LP From NYC Morbid Metal Crew Released

Following a two-year release stretch since their bold self-titled debut LP was issued, Relapse Records this week unveils the release details on the highly-anticipated second LP from New York City-based morbid sludge metal executioners, SERPENTINE PATH.

Born from within the smoldering remains of Unearthly Trance in 2011, UT members, bassist Jay Newman, drummer Darren Verni and vocalist Ryan Lipynsky (The Howling Wind) recruited guitarist Tim Bagshaw (ex-Ramesses, ex-Electric Wizard) to complete the SERPENTINE PATH lineup.

Now officially augmented by new second guitarist Stephen Flam, the mastermind behind NYC doom/death legends, Winter, SERPENTINE PATH brings forth their most demoralizing and anguish-filled slow-motion chaos yet, with the newly-completed Emanations. As with their first album, Emanations was recorded by the band’sJay Newman, after which it was honed to devastating perfection at Audiosiege, the album capturing forty-five minutes of true sludge punishment with seven brand new songs from this true underground all-star team. Sure, the pedigree is undeniable, but regardless of their “members of” status, SERPENTINE PATH is one of the most scathing sludge acts on the planet.

Emanations will see parole via Relapse May 27th, 2014 on CD, LP and digital formats. A new trailer featuring a sample of the audio, as well as the cover art by in-house Relapse artist Orion Landau and more has been released. View the trailer HERE, and place preorders for the album HERE.

SERPENTINE PATH:
Tim Bagshaw – guitars
Stephen Flam – guitars
Jay Newman – bass
Darren Verni – drums
Ryan Lipynsky – vocals

Emanations Track Listing:
1. House Of Worship
2. Treacherous Waters
3. Claws
4. Disfigured Colossus
5. Systematic Extinction
6. Torment
7. Essence of Heresy

http://www.relapse.com/serpentinepathemanations
http://serpentinepath.blogspot.com
https://www.facebook.com/serpentinepath
http://serpentinepath.bandcamp.com
http://www.relapse.com
http://relapserecords.bandcamp.com
http://www.facebook.com/RelapseRecords

Serpentine Path, Emanations album trailer

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Buried Treasure on a Serpentine Path

Posted in Buried Treasure on February 28th, 2013 by JJ Koczan

Once they figured out what they wanted to be as a band, Unearthly Trance only got heavier, so that the debut full-length from Serpentine Path — which unites that trio’s final lineup with guitarist Tim Bagshaw, formerly of Ramesses and Electric Wizard — should be darker and more extreme in its doomly ways isn’t so much a surprise as it is a natural evolution. Add to that vocalist Ryan Lipynsky‘s ongoing tenure in black metal progressives The Howling Wind and it makes even more sense, though Serpentine Path have little in common either with Lipynsky‘s other outfit or with Unearthly Trance. Some of Ramesses‘ death-doomiest moments might be recognizable in the eight-track/42-minute self-titled, but there’s little to none of the cultish psychedelia that offset such dirge marching in that band. With Serpentine Path, it’s pretty much all bludgeon.

The album was released last fall on Relapse and met with as positive a response as something so unabashedly negative can, and since it came out, Bagshaw (who wrote the music on the debut) has reportedly relocated to New Jersey from the UK and Winter guitarist Stephen Flam has joined as well, making the band a five-piece rounded out by bassist Jay Newman and drummer Darren Verni. I just recently came into contact with Serpentine Path courtesy of Flam, who was interviewed here a while back (if you didn’t read it, you should, it’s awesome), and having spent some time with the record, as usual, I a little bit regret not checking out it sooner. The drawn-out stomp of “Crotalus Horridus Horridus” and the ’90s-style leads infecting “Obsoletion” are a death-doomer’s missing link, and the purposeful unipolarity in Lipynsky‘s vocals there and elsewhere throughout the album only makes the band’s intentions clearer.

Bagshaw‘s guitar even on a shorter track like “Bats Amongst Heathens” — easy to hear a Winter influence there — crafts an abyss of tone, and as they’re no strangers to slow, lurching rhythms, Newman and Verni work well in walking the line between snail’s pace grooving and unhinged immobility. Periodic samples like that at the beginning of “Beyond the Dawn of Time” don’t so much ground the material as add to the chaos, and a song like the later “Compendium of Suffering” is given even more weirdness in its break for the vague spoken echoes playing out over the unceasing plod of the verse riff. I guess if you want the short version, Serpentine Path are seriously fucking heavy and seriously grim. They don’t stray from that modus throughout these tracks, but they don’t really need to either, since the more oppressive a song gets, the more it’s doing its job. They win no matter what.

Closer “Only a Monolith Remains” seems to have been the inspiration for the artwork as well, which seems to be nodding at Hellhammer on the front cover while on the back a sort of Cthulhu-meets-the-Pradator monolith plays host to the tracklist. The inside of the liner has snake scales embossed onto the paper, as do the lyrics, and the tray under the CD also has an embossed ouroboros, so clearly somebody was putting effort into the aesthetic from the ground up. Not the first time I’ve given Relapse‘s Orion Landau kudos and it probably won’t be the last. One way or another, Serpentine Path‘s Serpentine Path is a record I’m glad I got to check out, since given the changes in the band they’re not likely to repeat themselves next time around.

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