Angry Metal Guy
The great Gardenstale may be on a bit of a hiatus, but his mission for 2025 remains ingrained: give more attention to bands brave enough to hit us up directly. No label interference, no wanky paragraphs of how life-changing an album is, just a collection of fellows submitting themselves to our lashings. Imagine my surprise to see in our contact forms some honest-to-goodness Germanic deathcore, and a fresh debut at that! Deathcore proper is received questionably around these parts, with fellows Iceberg and Dear Hollow as its more staunch defenders. Still, Grimnis was brave enough to reach out directly, so let’s reward their optimism and subject their own release to our blackened flames.
The Path ov the Flame laces symphonic coating and blackened touches into a real sloberknocker of an artistic presentation. Wisely sidestepping an overreliance on tension-release breakdowns of olde, Grimnis work some well-trodden ingredients in shrieks and blast beats with real melodic touch into an album which is carefully constructed for maximum impact with little drag or dredge to be found. From the goth-tinged waltz signatures rooting “Sigil” and “The Brightest Star” to the beautiful outro of “The Obsidian Ceremony”, The Path ov the Flame is melodic with a capital M, coating the album in earworm-infested beauties without sacrificing the heaviness the genre calls for.
This accomplishment is rooted in two key ingredients. The first is excellence in the implementation of the orchestral flair. While some bands use such touches to disguise the complete lack of actual chord progressions and leads, Grimnis have meshed “less is more” into bombastic, theatrical results. “Sigil” shows the album’s entire hand, coming out with a cursed baroque-ian dance which is supported by the strings but never at the usurpation of the guitars. Harpsichord, piano, violin, cello, choir, synth, and a few vaguely eastern instruments I couldn’t precisely identify are worked as an extra tool of composition throughout the release, adding climactic eruptions to the conclusion of “The Brightest Star”, as well as innumerable calmer passages bridging one slab of intensity after another. Guitarists Chris and Jan deftly wrap leads and chord progressions in and under these flourishes, alternating between tremolo leads to match and bolster the melodies and other times trimming down to minimalistic counterpoint to give way to the grand display.
The second key tool is a grasp of compositional limitation beyond Grimnis’s years. While breakdowns and (unfortunate) pig squeals and blast beats abound, not a single moment drags beyond its expiration date or is repeated more than is called for. Chris is a talented vocalist with a great deal of various techniques on display, though he too falls prey to the “drench everything in voice” trend that so plagues the genre. “Hellborn Herald” interrupts what sounds like a peaceful outro for an outta-nowhere slam rendered powerful by contrast without beating it into the ground as if overly proud of its own heaviness. Breakdowns come and go in appropriate measure, with drummer Ju oscillating between eighth and sixteenth notes in creative application, rendering even stereotypical moments engaging. Occasional motifs are repeated as bookends or choruses, but as a whole, nothing outstays its welcome, and the listener is ushered from moment to moment through aural threads in a carefully constructed tapestry rather than chucked from one disconnected “brutz” moment to the next. Even the track sequencing is carefully placed, ensuring songs that end heavily are followed up by moody intros and vice versa, preventing cuts from blurring together throughout the album’s near fifty-minute run time.
I had next to no expectations when I pulled The Path ov the Flame from the promo slump. Even I had, they would have been exceeded and blown to smithereens as soon as we got past the usual boring intro track. Grimnis have come out swinging with what I am forced to call a truly remarkable debut. With an excellent grasp of melody and a sense of compositional restraint not found in bands many times their age in both years and discography, the lads from Germany have thrown down the gauntlet for symphonic deathcore with enviable ease and noteworthy style. It’s exciting to know this is their first offering, and I’m very keen to see where the future takes this promising young outfit. For now, deathcore or no, I can only give it a resounding seal of approval. The Path ov the Flame isn’t merely an enjoyable album, but an easy contender for deathcore debut of the year.
Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: n/a | Format Reviewed: Fookin’ Stream
Label: Independent Release
Website: Official Website
Releases Worldwide: August 9th, 2025
The post Grimnis – The Path ov the Flame Review appeared first on Angry Metal Guy.
Tue Aug 12 11:48:10 GMT 2025