Sorrows Path – The Rough Path Of Nihilism (2010)

Formed in November 1993, the Greece Sorrows Path on their second album delivered powerful, complex, quality Metal merging Heavy and Progressive elements with Death flavored intensity. Think of something like Iron Maiden playing Candlemass songs. Perfect and absolute stainless steel!
Technical and brutal, the 12 songs of “The Rough Path Of Nihilism” are both flavored by symphonic and Doom elements generating a massive sound and deeply dark, gloomy and epic vibe. Their music have a dark, tragic taste – which definitively reflects their own personal tragedy filled history.
Singer Angelos Ioannidis have a theatrical approach which mainly reminds me of Bruce Dickinson and Jon Oliva (Savatage).
“The Rough Path Of Nihilism” it’s an extremely compact, complex, flawless and unfortunately not enough known, publicized release.

OFFICIAL BIO
Sorrows Path was formed by Takis Drakopoulos (bass) and Kostas Salomidis (guitar) back in November 1993. Both being inspired by bands like Memento Mori, Solitude Aeturnus and Candlemass and shortly after Angelos Ioannidis (vocals) and Kostas Farmakis (drums) joined them, the band began rehearsing and composing material.
During 1994 and 1995 Sorrows Path performed live in several gigs that by that time were being held in local clubs such as Rodeo, An Club, Ston Aera etc. In the meanwhile, on January 1995 “Sorrows Path”, the band’s first demo, was released but shortly after that, Kostas Farmakis decided to leave the band (sometime in autumn 1995). At the fall of 1995 and while the band was in a search of a new drummer Takis Drakopoulos tragically dies of a serious brain disease leaving the remaining members numb.
After putting themselves together, Angelos and Kostas decided to continue with band and so after recruiting Stavros Giannakos on bass and Gregory Vlachos on drums continued rehearsing and performing live (Qualisound Festival, Rainbow Club, etc). The result of their efforts was a promo tape released in May 1996, simply entitled “Promo 96”, which was aiming in signing a deal with a record label. During the following year (1997) and after being in touch with record labels and promoters, Sorrows Path entered the studio to record some new material which was never released. In 1998 the band decided to take a break for about 2 years due to the mandatory military service that the band members had to undergo.
In the rise of the new millennium and while the band started to work again, Sorrows Path co-founder, Kostas Salomidis, was almost paralyzed because of a neck problem which was caused a few years ago by a devastating motorcycle accident. After 5 rough years of courage and pain, with medical treatment, family support, and with the help of God or Fate, Kostas partially recovered, being able to make some “noise” with the guitar! So in May 2005 everyone in the band was more than enthusiastic to the idea of rehearsing after 7 years of doom!
By the end of 2005 the band was back in action in order to catch up with the time lost all these years. Old songs were being rehearsed once again with new songs and were put together for future release. That was the time when Sorrows Path decided to release the re-mastered version of their first demo along with their ’96 promo tape.
In the meantime, some personal problems forced Gregory Vlachos (drums) to leave the band and on December of 2005 Fotis Mountouris replaced him. In the same month Sorrows Path agreed with Eat Metal Records in releasing the remasters.
On April 2006 Sorrows Path hit the stage after 9 whole years as the opening act for the Texan masters of Doom Metal, Solitude Aeturnus at Underworld Club, Athens, Greece. On the very next day the remasters were out from Eat Metal Records entitled “Resurrection”.
From that time and then, the band was back in full action…
For the next two years, the band spent time composing and preparing 12 new songs for public release. During that time Sorrows Path performed many gigs all over Greece, either supporting well known metal bands like Memory Garden, Pagan Altar, Scanner, Crystal Viper and Brocas Helm, or sharing the stage with some of the most popular Greek bands. At the summer of 2008, they entered Fragile Studios in Athens to record their new album with well known Greek metal producer, musician and composer Vangelis Yalamas (has collaborated with Duncan Patterson-ex Anathema and Joey Vera, Ray Alder from Fates Warning, plays and composes for Fragile Vastness and Jazzment Day), who also taking part in this album as a guest musician, playing synth and making some arrangements.
With the entrance of 2009, a new guitarist Giannis Tziligkakis (Ominous Sky – GR) joined Sorrows Path in order to fulfill the band’s vision for a solid and heavier sound that the new material demanded. From that time, the band spent many hours rehearsing in order to work out the chemistry between them. Some months later, they started testing their power on stage and by the end of the 2009 everything was ready! The recordings, mixing and mastering of Sorrows Path new album was completed! All the artwork and photography for this album has been made by the most important of his kind in Greece, Seth Siro Anton (Paradise Lost, Moonspell, Soilwork, Exodus, etc).
Having earned some propositions from record labels worldwide, Sorrows Path agreed with the upcoming German label Rock it Up Records to become the “mother” of their new baby, named “The Rough Path of Nihilism”. This new album was scheduled for release on the 29th day of October 2010. At the same time, the band closed some important lives to promote the new stuff. One of them is Sorrows Path’s first live outside Greece, at Malta Doom Metal Festival along with great local doom bands like Forsaken and Nomad Son and more.

DISCOGRAPHY:
Resurrection (2006, Eat Metal Records)
The Rough Path of Nihilism (2010, Rock It Up Records)

BAND MEMBERS:
Stavros Giannakos: Bass
Angelos Ioannidis: Vocals
Fotis Mountouris: Drums
Kostas Salomidis: Guitar
Giannis Tziligkakis: Guitar

Sorrows Path – Official Site
Sorrows Path @ MySpace
Sorrows Path @ Facebook
Contact: [email protected]

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aHbZUK5Cek&w=545&h=307]