The first track already blew my mind away so overwhelmingly, that I could not believe what I was listening to: Desert eagle, the first song of the album, is a melancholic masterpiece, filled with a universal gloom where minor and major tons mix together, to make you feel literally above the clouds and below the earth at the same time. Beautifully executed, this calm, transcending and soft atmospheric guitar lingered meticulous abrasive sound is constructed very carefully under notes played by the spiraling shift of a sonorous colorful poetry never seen before. Note by note, you can almost feel the harmonies dwindling into your soul, as the peaceful atmosphere of its sound easily correlates your senses with the unbelievable life that comes out from the musical layer. I think I’ve listened to this song at least forty times, nonstop.
Easily, the album goes upwards, in these same directions. Great introspective songs pervaded by the minimalist timing of riffs very well constructed under the basis of the infinite background of an unrestrained sensitive domain, ordained in an increasing path of meticulously premeditated sagacity, very well dosed by the concentrated objectivity to achieve what both where searching for: atmospheric layouts of reconnaissance harmonies, emerged in a catatonic setting of an eternal night filled with a serenity undefined by space and time. The second track, Stevie Slimm in bloody mood, a deep rooted postmodern pervasive piece, grounded in a very polished ambience of universal solitude, like the rest of the album, could easily be very well defined by the guys who made this beautiful full length: according to Black Hill himself, “The album On a Deserted Path was inspired by the sand of the south, western movies, desert creatures, and blues heroes.” And this is exactly where the album goes. It really evokes deserted landscapes, desolate places, sad dust glories and loneliness in interior and exterior deserts, that could be located somewhere, in outer planets. You can almost feel those beautiful songs coming up as the possible soundtrack of life itself, especially in downplayed moments of outstanding arid melancholy, that these two guys easily create so beautifully with guitar strings, filled with composite, but at the same time very soft harmonies, that seems to rise by a life force of its own, in the insurgent path of a calm transcendental music, filled with the never ending creativity that only musical geniuses have in a very higher ground, exposing it in a true setting that really benefits the music, and the ambient it creates.
Although being very different musicians, each one with its own unique abilities, peculiar tastes and very singular backgrounds, the combination of talents here is quite interesting: they work together very well as a team, and maintain a structure that creates a cohesive identity for the album, that fits very well the awesome characteristics that make On a Deserted Path such an outstanding work of musical proficiency!
Despite the innovations, and the singular capacities of each musician, they bring some of the old stuff as well, albeit reinvented in very creative forms. You can easily identify some seventies rock and roll influences in the guitar layered outback sensitive atmospheres of at least some of those tracks, highlighting the outstanding inspirations that both musicians bring with their respective musical crafts, very well balanced in intriguing sensibilities, correctly placed in profound melodies, that easily tells to your soul a story filled with an outstanding and enthusiastic creative mission.
This is music for true underground fans. After hearing one time, you will have the desire to hear it numerous other times as well, over and over again. And of course, this is an album that obviously deserves and receives the maximum score! What these two guys have done is a great masterpiece, and all that underground fans will do next is to demand for a follow-up, certainly! What can I say, besides reiterate the fact that this is not just another marvelous album, but an outstanding masterpiece, that could easily be regarded as a magnum opus of underground music? I can say thank you, Black Hill, and Scott Snee, for this groundbreaking musical experience!
Wagner