REVIEW: Disaster Path – Disaster Path [2015/EP]
Artist: Disaster Path
Album: Disaster Path – EP
Mankind is barreling down a road to its own annihilation. As if written in stone and sealed to an unavoidable fate, humanity’s course is set, aided only by its own wrongdoing and cretinous habits. No matter how hard our species may try to stomp on the brakes and delay our fate, we are at odds against an unstoppable force–a frantic enzyme catalyzing our catastrophic demise: Disaster Path. These Adelaide annihilators bring all the tight-knit, expertly crafted musicianship one would expect from the down-tempo scene Down Under with the frantic, furious hardcore energy that’s boisterous enough to bathe the world in flames; and their latest self-titled EP is proof. A violent exposé of devastating down-tempo deathcore tinted with beatdown hardcore, Disaster Path are the thrilling, throat-grabbing and ear-shredding soundtrack to humanity’s demise.
Disaster Path attack the listener with a juggernaut-like instrumental approach that likens itself to a freight train–crushing through a thicket of errant, dense hardcore with a bold and brutalizing penchant for all things low, slow and heavy. If the future of mankind was a path to be cut through a forest of convoluted, twisting and turning happenstances, Disaster Path are the machete to do it–slicing through the stagnant, overcrowded herd of look-a-like, sound-a-like heavy artists that comprise the down-tempo Deathcore scene. The band are a punctual combination of heavy hardcore and devastating death metal that demands to be heard–look no further than Adam Welcome’s dynamic drumming. One part pulse-pounding two step and one part skull-smashing beatdown, Welcome is a percussive warrior. Throughout the blitzing beatdown-laden ballad “Disgusting,” Welcome keeps perfect time for bassist Josh Hillier and guitarist Johnny Hawkins to let loose with belligerent, in-your-face fretwork. In fact, Welcome serves that purpose throughout the band’s EP–the heart that pulses, pounds and thuds like gunfire, only breaking time to blitz the listener’s ears with lacerating fills and bouncy, groovy patterns. Overtime of Welcome’s whimsical hammering writhes Hillier and Hawkins, who provide a filth-laden coat of furious fretwork to wrap the listener in. “Endless Faces” sees the duo working dynamically–where Hawkins opts for riffing, raunchy grooves, Hillier keeps it real, working alongside Welcome’s pummeling kick drum to bruise the listener. However, when Hawkins gets heavy (which is constant and crushing), Hillier is right there with him, adding a little extra oomph to the onslaught–“The Fight” being a stellar example.
Above the din and dissonance of Disaster Path’s churning, crushing war machine there is a voice–the direction, constantly providing feeling and tangible fury to the band’s tight instrumental dynamic. This voice is that of Tim Ryan, the band’s resident terrorizer, and prodigally talented vocal Titan. Ryan’s range adds heft and mass to even the lightest and almost-ambient aspects of Disaster Path’s release. “A.D.” Sees Ryan make the best of his immense low bellow–a growl so fierce it sounds like Satan’s tortured gasps. However, “Disgusting” and “Manipulation” see Ryan juxtapose his gritty gurgle with a harsh traditional hardcore shout–a welcome variety that emphasizes the band’s hardcore and punk influences. These moments of relative vocal clarity often prelude pure aural punishment–as the beatdown concluding the barn-burner “Manipulation” is the soundtrack to sinister, sadistic torture if ever I’ve heard it.
By now, you’re beginning to get the full picture of Disaster Path’s impressive fury. Somewhere between the voracity of Knocked Loose and the bloodlust of Wicked World, the quartet’s crushing EP is a diverse offering of low, slow heaviness and quick, infernal anger. “Disgusting” is a relatively frantic track that serves brilliantly to kick-start the EP–an ignition that soon matures into a lingering, slow burn as breakdowns like those found in “Endless Faces” and “Manipulation” feel like hours of waterboarding: torturous, endless and agonizing. Disaster Path are a remarkably synchronized and ruthlessly heavy band that know JUST what buttons to press to punish the listener with sheer terror and skin-peeling pain–just as they know what button to press to send the world reeling into a cataclysmic, cloud-splitting apocalypse.
9/10
For Fans Of: Wicked World, Knocked Loose, Rex, Genocide District, Beacons
By: Connor Welsh
