(Progressive Metal) Pathosray - Pathosray (Japanese Edition) - 2007, FLAC (image+.cue), lossless

#777Formed back in 2000, PATHOSRAY is one of the best kept secrets of the Italian metal scene. Originally going by the name N.D.E, the band, formed by drummer Ivan Moni Bidin, guitarist Luca Luison and vocalist Marco Sandron, established their own sound as a mixture of heavy metal, progressive metal and 70's style symphonic prog-rock.

In 2001 the band recorded its first demo, "Strange Kind Of Energie…s" - released in 2002 under the new band name PATHOSRAY, which they promoted heavily through lots of concerts in their home country over the next few years.

By 2006 the band had established their line-up with bass player Fabio D'Amore and keyboardist Gianpaolo Rinaldi, and it was time for another demo - this time the very impressive "Deathless Crescendo", which was well-received by the Italian media and of course gained the band more concerts around Italy.

In the fall of 2006 they started to record their first full-length album, simply titled "Pathosray". The album was recorded at Angel's Wings studio by Nico Odorico and Mattia Sartori.

Once the album was completed, the band (now with new guitarist Alessio Velliscig) sent the disc to Danish based Intromental Management (by recommendation by their good friends in the band Raintime, who are also signed to Intromental), and once the awesome music on the album reached Denmark, a deal was soon in place.

Through Intromental Management a record deal was immediately made with American record label Sensory Records (home of such great acts as Spiral Architect, Circus Maximus, Zero Hour and Wuthering Heights), who absolutely loved what they heard.

The "Pathosray" debut salbum is a clever mixture of symphonic arrangements, technical parts and huge melodies. Musically it's easiest (but not completely fair towards PATHOSRAY) to compare with acts such as Dream Theater, Nevermore, Symphony X, Eldritch or Fates Warning.

The decision was made to have the album mixed at Jailhouse Studios in Denmark with world-reknowned producer Tommy Hansen (a.o. Jorn, TNT, Beyond Twilight, Helloween, Pretty Maids). The mixing was done in July 2007. This of course lifted the sound a hundred percent. The great artwork was created by none other than Mattias Norén at ProgArt Media (a.o. Evergrey, Ayreon, Kamelot, Into Eternity).

#777The album was in USA on October 23rd 2007, Canada and Europe on October 26th and followed a few months later in Japan (through Marquee/Avalon).

In support of the release, PATHOSRAY played a few select shows around Italy and in September 2008 they went to USA to perform for the first time in front of an enthusiastic ProgPower Festival crowd. 2 weeks later they played at ProgPower Europe in Holland with just as good a response.

The rest of 2008 was spent on writing and recording the new album, "Sunless Skies", which was recorded and engineered by Ivan Moni Bidin and Fabio D'Amore at Artesonika Studios in Italy, and mixed and mastered in Sweden by Johan Ornborg and Jens Bogren at Fascination Street Studios (Symphony X, Hammerfall, Opeth, Katatonia and more). This time the artwork was created by Genzo (a.o. Fairyland).

With new record deals in place - Frontiers Records worldwide and Soundholic Records for Japan - and an awesome new album to boot, PATHOSRAY is ready to climb the next step on the progressive metal ladder. In connection with the upcoming release, set for April 24 in Japan, May 25 in Europe and June 9 in USA, PATHOSRAY has been confirmed to play ProgPower Scandinavia Festival (alongside Pretty Maids, Freak Kitchen, Mercenary and more) in Copenhagen, Denmark on September 25th 2009.

Due to artistic differences, guitarist Alessio Velliscig and Pathosray have decided to part ways and Antonio Petris joined the band in summer 2010. Antonio has been working with Pathosray’s basisst, Fabio D’Amore, for a few years now on several projects. The band found he brought a level of energy and artistic contribution.

Pathosray is now working on the new (and third) album.

#777Italy isn’t exactly known for its large amount of original bands and neither is progressive metal these days so it was bit of a surprise that this debut from Pathosray avoided two such deadly traps. These Italians draw their influence from USA mainly but that’s as far as I will go with the comparisons. Like many tiny brooklets combining into a larger stream, there’s simply no influence large enough here to get into such specifics. A diffuse, but nonetheless correct description would be that this is a mix between your beefier kind of power metal and your standard melodic progressive metal, with a large symphonic influence that’s primarily incorporated into the structure as chunkier segments, rather than into the general flow of the songs (though there is some of that too), as is more common.

Considering this is only a debut, it’s really impressive how professional it sounds on all levels. Sure enough, Pathosray have been playing together for quite some time already and have released a couple of demos, earning some recognition in the process, but it usually takes a long time before a band gets as finely tuned as this. Most finely tuned is their songwriting; it’s been a long time since I’ve heard a progressive metal band with such a dynamic songwriting. It took quite a while before everything made sense to me, but it was apparent from the first track onward that this was something out of the ordinary. It’s hard to explain what a captivating experience this really is, and what a pleasant surprise it is to hear something that is so full of ideas and sounds so fresh.

Their genius lies in the unpredictable nature of their songwriting, but as unpredictable as they are, they never fail to keep things interesting. In a heartbeat, they can shift from power-chord riffs, or whatever they should be doing, to soaring – sometimes ethereal - vocal melodies ala Midnight, “spacey” sounds, strange keyboard passages or dissonant sounding chords which would have made Piggy (Voivod) proud, though they never stray far from the epic, powerful sound, which is the mainstay of this album.

As good as Pathosray is, there is still room for development. The backing vocals could have used a bit more work, and the other complaint is – ironically - that the band’s brilliant songwriting recipe sometimes works against them, making a few of the songs stand out as just a bit too disjointed for their own good. Such sad little nitpicking that is though; this is about is good as progressive metal is ever going to get, and to expect more out of any band is just silly.

What a great year for metal this has turned out to be. Two months ago I was ready to proclaim 2007 one of the worst years of the 21st century, metal-wise. Since then I’ve found at least 5 great albums of which two or three were masterpieces, and this is certainly one of them. Best album of the year award? I’m not sure just yet, I feel there is still room for this album to grow, but it’s this one or Circus Maximus’s Isolate. There’s just no way another album is going to come out this year which is going to top those two, so I know what I’ll be listening to during the next couple of months.

Review written by fluffy_ferret for www.metal-archives.com