![]() I worked with Radie on my first album too. With Ian being the piper, that’s in their minds. “They’re obviously inspired by the pipes as well. (Both acts are signed to Geoff Travis’s River Lea label.) It also marks her out as a fellow traveller of Lankum, the Dublin group, whose output has a similarly mediative, even ominous quality. The droning aspect of her playing calls to mind not only traditional music but also more experimental artists such as Sarah Davachi and Anna Von Hausswolff. To the ancient, she brings something modern. She discovered the pipes at school and was inspired by the great traditional musician and storyteller Rona Lightfoot (who appeared on Chaimbeul’s first record). Photograph: Camille LemoineĬhaimbeul grew up on the Sleat peninsula, on the southern edge of the Skye, where she was educated in Scottish Gaelic. It’s so important and unique to the pipes: it should be up the front and leading the arrangement.”Ĭhaimbeul is about to go on a short Irish tour that will take in dates in Cork, Limerick and Clare. The way I like to create my music is concentrated on the drones. Uniquely with these, they have a second drone – which means it has a slightly fuller drone sound. With the Scottish smallpipes, you have the octave drones which are normal to most pipes. ![]() Obviously, the big Highland pipes are well known. If you’re going to ruin your evening, this is one of the better ways to go.“Scottish smallpipes were revived in the late 1980s and 1990s in Scotland,” she says. It is, however, a powerful statement of doom metal misanthropy delivered with the fatal acumen of four veterans of the genre. Indeed, this isn’t music for social gatherings or for a night with that special someone. Most strongly bolstering Serpentine Path’s bona fides is the utter sense of despair that emanates from every reverberating chord. But within the boundaries that the band sets, there are various moments in which the instrumentation grows more dynamic, from the mighty riffs that kick off “Obsoletion,” to the ominous synth drone and ghostly voices that haunt “Compendium of Suffering.” After a brief introduction about Satanic numerology in “Arrows,” the band gets right to the meat of what they do best: chunky riffs and bass that could loosen ribcages. This simplicity has a certain elegance about it, though not so much that it gets in the way of the band’s ability to wield noxious, droning fuzz as if it were a blunt object. This style of doom just hits you head on. ![]() The band largely avoids ethereal or atmospheric introductions or interludes, or baroque instrumental flourishes. ![]() Despite Lipynsky’s death metal growl, Serpentine Path tends to fall more between the classic doom chug of Saint Vitus and Southern sludge. Yet, the most refreshing aspect of Serpentine Path’s virulent rumble is how simple it is. There are certain characteristics to be expected with any doom album, no matter how funereal or abrasive, and Serpentine Path’s Relapse debut hits most of the necessary checkpoints - sluggish tempos, guitars tuned to subterranean, distortion that could make the ground below collapse. Instead, the trio regrouped with former Electric Wizard bassist Tim Bagshaw on guitar, and arose reborn as Serpentine Path, a fittingly massive second acts from four doom die-hards. And yet the band’s three members - Ryan Lipynsky, Jay Newman and Darren Verni - didn’t actually have any plans to stop playing music together. Earlier this year, after more than a decade in the service of ghastly low end and ferocious thunder, Unearthly Trance quietly came to an end. But it’s best to call New York-based Serpentine Path more of a metal-band enhancement. Doom metal has had its share of supergroups, from the sludge-veterans Voltron of Shrinebuilder, to metal’s original supergroup, Black Sabbath.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |