The fifth full length studio album from ARRAYAN PATH titled “Chronicles Of Light”, is exactly as flashy and theatrical as I had hoped. When power metal is done right, it’s clearly theatrically inspired, extremely emotional, and powerful, which pretty much sums up this album. Right from the opening bars of the first track “Solomon Seed”, the massive soaring vocals of Nicholas, and the beautiful and powerful guitar playing of Socratis, take front and center for a truly great album. It’s not perfect as there are times where it starts to feel a little uninspired on tracks like “Scorpio” and “Orientis”, but it more than makes up for these with powerhouses such as “Gabriel is Rising”, and emotional power-ballads “December” and “Ignore The Pain”. ARRAYAN PATH show and incredible amount of versatility going from hard and angry to powerful and moving softer songs, and everything in between. Nicholas Leptos in particular demonstrates how great a singer he is by going from the typical clean and warm power metal voice, to the much more harsh and ugly sound associated with more thrash inclined bands. Not that this is a bad thing at all, as it always perfectly suits whatever the music is that he is singing. I found myself constantly whistling or humming my way through most of this album even on its first play through, as the vast majority of the songs are so very catchy and memorable, which is mostly due to the musical theater-styled progressions leading to this sounding very much like a metal opera, similar to bands like AVANTASIA, or STAR ONE. Before this album, I had heard very little of ARRAYAN PATH, however I now find myself wanting to hear absolutely everything that they have to offer. “Chronicles of Light” is a fantastic example of what power metal should be. Even with its few flaws, it’s a strong effort from ARRAYAN PATH, and definitely deserves a listen from fans of power, prog, and symphonic metal due to the truly epic way it plays out.
