Reminiscent of the early, distressed works of Ephel Duath, Way to End make life difficult and complicated on Desecrated Internal Journey. It’s a hard listen that sputters along, lacking any real “wow” moments that came across when ED’s Davide Tiso was still halfway interested in metal. All this chalks up to an avant-garde metal mess.
Most of the seven songs on Desecrated Internal Journey, traverse down mid-tempo, but awkward paths. There’s no balance or flow to a lot of these songs and the guitar melodies are often weak and uninspired, just reference “At the Threshold.” The band does dole out some unique, almost gratifying rhythms on “The Worm,” that speak to the high degree of musicality possessed in their ranks. Still, that doesn’t account for the not-so engaging strands of “Facing the Abyss” and “A Step Into the Void.”
Hobbled from the beginning, Way To End have quite the distance to go if they want to approach the avant-garde metal mastery of a Ephel Duath, Celtic Frost, etc., and so on. Be that as it may, these are the type of bands that usually stumble during their first attempts and could turn it around next time through. Wouldn’t that be grand?
(This content originally appeared on Blistering.com)