Mystic Circle - The Bloody Path of God
Mystic Circle are scene veterans (as evidenced by the increasingly grizzled fizzogs on display in the promo photographs) and "The Bloody Path of God" is the seventh full-length release from the Deutschlander dark lords since their inception in the early 1990s. They've shed a few band members along the way, and this LP was recorded as a boiled-down power trio.
Mystic Circle were never the most 'kvlt' of bands, always operating more at the Dimmu Borgir end of the black metal spectrum rather than dealing in Burzum-inspired bleakness or Darkthrone-style necro-philia. Nevertheless, "The Bloody Path of God" moves one step further away from their black metal roots, with little real sign of their former genre allegiance beyond the (predictably) anti-Christian lyrical stance, the cover artwork (which features the rotting, crucified corpse of Jesus Christ and a naughty priest - ho hum), and the 'angry goblin in need of a Strepsil' vocals.
We even have to wait until 'Raiders of the Apocalypse' at the album's midpoint before we get a blastbeat. Most of the material on offer here is squarely grounded in Euro thrash, often sounding not a million miles away from the output of their countrymen, Destruction. Unfortunately, most of Mystic Circle's riffs are second-rate, the sort of thing which Slayer would use once or twice during a song's intro and then not return to again for the duration of that tune. They're rarely substantial enough foundation upon which to build a whole song, yet alone an album with a 40 minute plus running time. It speaks volumes that the fairly faithful version of Celtic Frost's 'Circle of the Tyrants' tacked on the end as a bonus track is easily the best song on the album.
One other hangover from the band's black metal days are the occasional synthesisers, which are somewhat ham-fisted and unconvincing. "The Bloody Path of God" also lapses a few times too often into samey passages of clean arpeggios on the strings. These attempts at instilling a dose of black metal mood to proceedings come across as uninspired and boring rather than atmospheric. The production is also disappointingly dry and does little to inject any excitement into proceedings.
Though not a bad album by any means, "The Bloody Path of God" shows that Mystic Circle are most successful when delivering their metal straight. They would perhaps do best to play to their strengths and concentrate on developing their craft as a thrash band, leaving the dodgy 'atmospheric' passages in the past.