When an album has atmospheric, symphonic or experimental overtones I tend to think it's better than it really is. What happens when there is an album that contains all this? Well, it's called Crossing the Fiery Path and I dedicate myself to praise it without any kind of objectivity while I close my eyes and cover my ears to ignore all the comments that say, correctly, that this album is far from perfect, yes, I know, but that doesn't stop me from enjoying it like a child enjoys his belief in the existence of Santa Claus.
Crossing the Fiery Path contains a lot of elements that in other works don't work and get that here yes, a vocalist declaiming, a pretentious ending with piano, keyboard intrusiveness are some of the topics that have been seen in hundreds of other albums, maybe the production of the album was not the best in the world, after all half of the tracks on the album are re-recorded songs but Necromantia really knew what they wanted to do on this album, how much they go deep into the atmosphere on each of the tracks is not something casual, their main goal was to create probably the closest thing to a horror movie soundtrack combined with black metal elements. Even so, to even try to qualify in a concrete genre this album that contains so many different elements, from doom metal, folk, classical music among many others, seems to me quite useless.
But going back to what I was saying in the beginning, there are several elements in this work that even people who have generally liked this album have not liked, being the biggest example the third track "Last song for Valdezie" which is considered at best as a "filler", I don't see it like that, it's true that it doesn't fit with the theme of the album, but Necromantia breaks the rules in this album, they are looking for something different and something with good music quality and they achieve it with this song, an instrumental with bass rhythm, played in an excellent way, accompanied by folk and atmospheric elements, personally one of my favorite songs of the album.
And the fact is that this album screams creativity from all sides, because, for the less perceptive, we are talking about an album where there is no rhythm guitar, what we find is an 8-string bass that provides a similar sound but that emphasizes more the heaviness and atmosphere of the music. But if we really want to talk about creativity, we have to talk about "The Warlock" and his interlude. I can understand that there are people who are put off by such a long atmospheric interlude, but from a personal perspective, I will never forget the first time I listened to it and how I plunged into the depths of the darkness created by Necromantia until a scream of pure terror made my blood run cold. Granted this is a one time trick, but just because of how they managed to break all my expectations, I will always have immeasurable respect for them. Besides, the song "The Warlock" is together with "Les Litanies de Satan" the best of the album, both have several points in common, as they are preceded by an atmospheric intro, their length allows them to explore different musical phases so they don't get boring and they also contain the best vocal performances of the whole album. I already commented in my review of Varathron's "Walpurgisnacht", the parts where the vocalist declaims were totally atrocious for several reasons, but with Necromantia it doesn't happen, here we can find an outstanding vocal performance in all aspects, the evil feeling that is given to the already blasphemous lyrics helps to feed back the accumulation of darkness that is increased in the slower moments, but even when the vocalist has to put his voice more raspy he does it at a great level too, as I have permanently in my memory how he says
"Time has decayed my body
But my will remains the same".
The only moment where this album doesn't surprise me is with its ending, we have the typical piano based ending song, but somehow it works! It does so because the whole album has been built around this idea of creating something creepy, and although it loses the originality that the rest of the album gains, it is extremely well implemented, almost like an antithesis to "Last Song for Valdezie", which makes me wonder what feeling I would have gotten from the album if the order of these two songs had been changed.
I am not being totally fair with this album, as it has several aspects that can be criticized, and if this review has seemed to focus only on a few general characteristics it is because I have done it that way but it is because I consider that the overall result is good enough to ignore all those negative aspects that have little to do with what the members were looking for in this work. This is a tribute to what was done for a different and unique album, Necromantia hasn't released anything like this again, maybe because they don't want to or because they can't, this is the son of an unrepeatable time and that's why it has a special place in my heart.
Sample:
youtube.com/watch?v=7qXQSiO_qVc
