With differing components of Hellenic Black metal currently being represented by the likes of uber gods Rotting Christ and Septic Flesh, the prospect of securing a copy of a release from the relatively new inception from fellow countrymen Synteleia was one to make me giddier than the infamous kid in a candy shop.

‘Daemonica Infernalium’ opens the proceedings on ‘Ending Of The Unknown Path’ with a full on assault of battering fretwork and drum battering, twinned with guttural and vitriolic vocals throughout. The vocals are spat out with spite and venom but seem to lay flat against the plodding and monotonous musical score that accompanies them.

The title track continues in the same vain as the opener ‘Daemonica Infernalium’ and treads water with ‘Dark Summoner Of Yog-Sothoth’ This duet are monotonous and lacklustre throughout with no injection or deviation to the style they have locked down and visibly not willing to deviate from.

‘Three Oaths To Dagon’ starts on a different tangent with some differing melodies carving open the track before all too soon they revert back to their old recipe and the track seemingly now morphed into a similar guise to the rest of the album tracks, slow, plodding and verging on tedious.

‘Ithaqua, Thy Mighty Storm’, has the most interesting title on the release and this is reflected in the track itself which is more melodic and structured as a ballad type affair. I had high hopes for this track, and even though it has adopted a different uniform to the other album tracks, it still remains wearisome in its complexity.

Again, Synteleia don’t change their path on the latter tracks, all sounding as if there is no real thought process going on, they are just happy to stick to one method of bludgeoning and onslaught to create almost near carbon copies of one another.

‘The Black Goat Rites’ is a speedier, thrashier number and it sparks my interest and keeps my attention throughout the first waves of the track. This appeared to be a diamond in the rough and I was verging on wishing the rest of the tracks were composed along these lines until the female vocals kicked in and a strange warbling style is unleashed onto the track, this then absolutely deflated the track and made it annoying and irritating and didn’t entice me back for another listen at all.

These Greeks have a long way to go, and need to open their mind to possibly injecting a fresh balanced, multi-faceted approach to their composing of any subsequent releases, because at the moment they are just far too flat and humdrum for this to warrant any subsequent plays from my library.

(4/10 Phil Pountney)

https://www.facebook.com/synteleia

https://synteleia.bandcamp.com/album/ending-of-the-unknown-path