Paths to Deliverance takes flight.
Created by the tortured mind of A.S.A. (vocals/guitar/bass, Azziard, Alkhemia, Redsphere, ex-The Negation) and helped by Kévin Paradis (drums, Construct of Lethe, Mithridatic, ex-Benighted, ex-Agressor, ex-Svart Crown…), the project delivers its first album, Ten, in 2025, thanks to the support of Malpermesita Records.
The album kicks off with the anguishing sound of Ab Initio, the first composition that quickly makes us realize that the project is rooted both in unhealthy Black Metal and in stranger and more dissonant influences. The complex riffs eventually ignite for an intense final, but Resonances quickly takes over, asserting its fury and darkness as violent as it is oppressive, projected at full speed, but also in rather strange jerky patterns that also welcome soaring harmonics just as on Solitude, the following track. The approach is rather different, leaving the guitars to lead the advance into the darkness with airy tones, but also devastating drums that fuel this contrast with the intoxicating sound that leads to the eventful The Calm Before the Storm, where guitars adopt disturbing noisy tones. The flow finally calms down to let the leads float gently, but the duo don’t hold back, accelerating again from time to time and finally leading us to Alone in the Dark, where the torrent of riffs in turn becomes very tumultuous. Even the supposedly calmer passage places us at the center of a veil of anguish, which we find again in another form with Reveries and its assumed dissonance, under which the instrumental seems almost wiser in certain dreamlike moments. The composition is very long, and even features a slow, restful clean-sound finale before leaving us to face Delirium, where saturation takes over again to let us drift between its infernal, chaotic notes at a generally sustained pace. The duo are joined by Rob Davies (Through Dreams & Distance) on Here Lies…, giving the composition a kind of interesting duality that he exploits to great effect to reinforce the choruses, then it’s on to The Storm that we continue our journey, first with gentleness and then with blazing fury. The track continually lacerates us with its riffs, before letting Redemption put the finishing touches to it with more capricious patterns that give slightly different shades to the virulent blackness, where they will be accompanied by Italian soprano Laura Delogu.
Although deeply rooted in oppressive Black Metal, Paths to Deliverance opens up to other influences on Ten, making the album an intriguing, rich well of darkness to be savored as it should be.
85/100