hey, I don't have to MS Paint this one for my review, thanks Gunsen
"Review I should have made years ago but I'm a lazy fuck" part three.
Pathfinder, again, with Fifth Element, their second studio album released back in 2012.
After gaining their popularity after BTSBTT Pathfinder focused a lot on fanservice, making a special FAQ site for fans, releasing 2 songs from Fifth Element as a preview, studio reports and I even saw an advertisement in public transport in Gdynia, one of my favourite WTF moments in my life.
Back with a new drummer as the washing machine wasn't fast enough they replaced it with a chef devoid of respect to his kitchen set
So, can Pathfinder beat their debut shit with moar epicness and speed or show something unexpected?
The album begins with Ventus Ignis Terra Aqua or as I like to call it- Fart, Burn, Shit and Vodka.
*wild audience applause appears*
Thank You very much everybody!
*exits stage*
ekhem, so a typical album intro song, that introduces us to four elements and announces a fifth one, a fifth element which is? They don't say, second track begins.
Fifth Element.
And here we go with the usuals, orchestrations, speed, kitchen on fire, solos everywhere and lyrics about power metal-ish stuff. But this time something is different, orchestrations are pushed more to the back, vocals are more varied with some screams that remind more extreme metal genres and the lyrics are a little bit easier to hear and have a motive instead of power metal gibberish. The song is a bow towards metal in general as I reviewed earlier. And the whole attitude really fits, extremely fast drums and screams take this song one leg out of power metal territory.
Third song is Ready To Die Between Stars and first 20 seconds show that this is the hit song on this record. From cathy melodies, amazing solos (keyboard solo shines), guest vocals and memorable lyrics the song delivers probably the most extreme drums you can hear from Pathfinder. The band made a music video for this track and even if it's popularity is lesser than Lord of Wolves it stays as my favourite power metal music video of all time (Trollfest are unbeatable masters when it comes to music videos in general). I even got 2 seconds of screentime on the video, though pushed somewhere in the background, out of relevance, covered by youtube ads, forgotten ;_;
I'm so sad, and a little mad
I guess my image is too bad
I'm so sad, please let me be
why Pathfinder doesn't love me?
Ekhem, next song.
The Day When I Turn Back Time. Pathfinder loves choirs on this album I noticed. And extreme drums. Keyboards on this track are spot on, and it looks like another hit song to me. Not a sing-along song as it's very hard to sing but a typical Pathfinder hit song (like Sons of Eternal Fire).
Fifth song of the Fifth Element (dumb smile on my face, I love me) is Chronokinesis. For those who have hard time with difficult words I advice using the name "Homo kisses". Song's intro is epic and deserves a mention. At first I didn't like this song as it has a lot of different tempos and ideas that hardly fit together. It has choirs, parts that would be great to sing along with an audience but overall it's too much at once. The one thing that saves the song are the vocals, Simon delivers one of his best performances there and sounds really into it. Personal stuff aside he's a really good vocalist when he wants.
Next song is a Sabaton fan dream come true, March To The Darkest Horizon. Second long track on the record focuses mostly on choirs and battle/military sounds. It's not really my thing but I always smile like an idiot after "kill them for me" scream.
Anyone else hears a "Marshmallow" instead of "March something"?
Link to this exact moment
Also the first song I heard the word "fucking". Pathfinder can be so edgy sometimes. The more battle part of the song is stopped in the middle and delivers the best orchestrations on the track with female vocals backing it up, then after a short solo it gets back to battle and stuff.
Seventh song is Yin Yang which is a ballad similar to Undiscovered Dreams, with male and female vocals leading the song. And while Dreams were heavily orchestrated here, as with the rest of the album, orchestrations are pushed to the back and the most attention is focused on vocals. Which are the main jewel here, both singers are showing their best, even one small guitar solo is well placed, less forced.
And back to full speed with Elemental Power, the most "pop" song on the record. And the first song on the record I hear bass!
I know I never give bassists enough shine but as I don't know anything about bass what do you want me to say? The bass line is fitting and it's so majestic.
SO MAJESTIC
Track number nine is Ad Futuram Rei Memoriam. The fuck? The most memorable (or not) thing from this song is the wtf title. Just kidding, I was just happy that there is one thing I can make fun of, the song has the most catchy choir chorus, even though it falls in the BTSBTT territory and I can't understand a single word sung except for "run away". But I give Simon a credit- it's a very fast song to sing. Keys also shine here, pushed to the background but I don't think it's a bad thing. The guitar outro is sick, with a remains of the kitchen being tortured to death.
One of the last songs is When The Sunrise Breaks The Darkness. And I've noticed that this album has a love towards long track names. Anyway, the song's intro is awesome and early vocals deliver the most epic scream Simon puts on the album. As most of the album song focuses strongly on choir vocals. There are some unfitting black metallish vocals there but soon are replaced by choirs in latin (wtf?), bunch of solos and second epic scream.
Bonus song is Spartakus And The Sun Beneath The Sea, about a cartoon different than Ninja Turtles so I don't feel I should review it.
Vita is the outro track bringing back choirs from Fifth Element track and some cool orchestrations
Ekhem, a small apology is in order to everyone who came here to see an assholish review- I would love to let my inner asshole loose on this album review but there is really nothing I can make fun of.
So far Pathfinder fixed everything they did wrong (in my opinion) with BTSBTT and even vocals are clearer and easier to hear with orchestrations pushed to the back. I never thought that an album with the same lyric motive (metal as fifth element) and so many choirs in choruses can be so interesting and, dare I say, diverse.
Vocals are so much better than on the first album, before writing this review and relistening the album I wasn't giving Simon enough credit for it. Keys are also more memorable, on the first album they were mostly heard during solos because of all those orchestrations, now they deliver some simple yet memorable sounds during songs.
I also noticed that songs have better fitting intros, on the first album solos in the beginning souded more forced. Album as a whole is easier to listen to and the song placement is slightly better than on BTSBTT. Songs are less complicated but still varied, even with less tempo changes. I believe that the major reason for these changes are orchestrations being pushed more to the background so a big plus for mixing.
While being essentialy the same Pathfinder's second album delivers shorter, more "hit" songs. While many fans complained that it's less epic than BTSBTT I personally prefer this album, even with songs that I myself don't particulary like there is nothing wrong really, March To The Darkest Horizon is a flawless song that I just don't like, maybe the outro is a little bit too long, maybe.
So here it is, the most asslicking, gay review I ever did. And no one pays me to write this shit ;_;
Score:
Vocals: 9/10
Guitars: 10/10
Bass: banana/10
Drums: 10/10
Keyboards: 11/10
bonus stuff:
+ they fixed everything I didn't like and kept the good stuff
+ female vocals still shine
+ while singing about the same thing over and over again it doesn't sound boring
+ more catchy songs than on the first album
+ better than an awesome debut, a rare occurrence
- no ninja turtles
Total score: 110% , deserved
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