Path of Destiny – The Seed of All Evil (Apostasy)

Thursday, 10th June 2021
Rating: 7.5/10

German melodic death metal band Path of Destiny has been championing that old school feel for 10 years at this point, and The Seed of All Evil is their third album. Five years removed from Dreams in Splendid Black, the band is continuing to do their slightly symphonic and blackened take on things, and they’ve maintained a solid consistency.

The mechanics that worked well on Dreams continue to stand tall for the band. The old school melodeath vibes are strong – meaning that the band isn’t tossing in metalcore/clean vocal choruses, and tend to rely on the guitars to do the heavy, melodic lifting. As such, each of the tracks are laced with plenty of melody inside the more aggressive melodeath/black formatting. There are moments that are more vicious in sound, but they are tempered by more elegant and catchy parts that can come through the guitars and/or the synth backup. It’s a style that has worked for many an act, and Path of Destiny do it as well as anyone else in the area. “Endbringer” being a personal favorite on the album, with a driving and thrashy opening that really hooks the listener in, and then weaves in more melodic elements to really grab your attention without letting off of the throttle. Other tracks go in a more bludgeoning, mid-tempo direction and deliver some darker grooves (see “March of the Antichrist”) and it gives the band some needed variety, given it’s near 50-minute runtime.

With their third effort, Path of Destiny continue to sharpen their melodeath/black melodies without compromising their energy. The Seed of All Evil doesn’t make for a ton of innovation, but nor does it need to. There’s always room for some strongly written melodic material like this that sticks to the older traditions and nails them with passion.

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