Sometimes the "featuring ex-members of" tag can be misleading, but in the case of Serpentine Path, pedigree is important. The band, which debuted in February on a self-titled 7", includes the entirety of Unearthly Trance, a Brooklyn-via-Long Island trio that issued a string of harrowing, unpredictable doom-metal records before disbanding this past July. Bassist Jay Newman and drummer Darren Verni play the same roles in the new group, while Ryan Lipynsky-- a super-prolific guitarist-vocalist also known for his work in black-metal projects such as Thralldom and the Howling Wind-- handles mic duties exclusively. The fresh element here is guitarist Tim Bagshaw, a member of Ramesses, a UK trio that takes stoner metal to nightmarish extremes. (The four met in 2002 when Unearthly Trance toured with Bagshaw's old-band, occult-psych heavyweights Electric Wizard.)
Despite the overlap in personnel, there's a crucial difference between Unearthly Trance and Serpentine Path: While the former band spiked its evil sludge with uptempo hardcore gallops, dark-ambient atmospherics, acoustic interludes, and the occasional melodic bellow from Lipynsky on exemplary statements like 2008's Electrocution and 2010's V, the latter favors a much narrower palette. Serpentine Path fixate on a single sonic idea, a blend of doom- and death-metal practice (the early-90s-era NYC trio Winter, re-formed as of 2011, is one key forebearer) built around Bagshaw's towering slo-mo riffs, Lipynsky's menacing growls, and the odd creepy sample. The result is an admirably streamlined 43-minute LP-- superbly played and recorded-- that thrives on its own monomania.
Opening track "Arrows" epitomizes the no-nonsense sturdiness of the Serpentine Path aesthetic. What's impressive here isn't the raw material; the opening sample, a recitation from the Book of Revelation, is straight out of the Ramesses playbook, and Bagshaw's death-blues chug plays like extreme-doom 101. But the sophistication of the delivery-- the way the rhythms hypnotize even as they heave-- is anything but commonplace; it's clear that each musician present is an elite lifer, sworn like a blood brother to the cause of slo-mo heaviness. Darren Verni is the MVP. Here and throughout the record, his taut beats, peppered with tasty snare syncopations, lend an improbable sense of funk to Bagshaw's shaggy riffscapes. The sheer conviction of the performances, coupled with Serpentine Path's beautifully natural-sounding production job, makes "Arrows" feel like a new benchmark in its familiar style.
For listeners accustomed to the wide array of vocal tactics Lipynsky favored with Unearthly Trance-- by the time of V, he was complementing his signature raspy yell with wounded-sounding bellows and gothic moans-- his monochrome delivery on Serpentine Path might seem like a step backward. Yet given the cold intensity of the new project, it's a shrewd choice. Relieved of all melodic duty, Lipynsky approaches his role here as an MC might. On "Crotalus Horridus Horridus", a portrait of a rattlesnake attack, he slides in and out of step with the band's lumbering cadences, accenting offbeats and punctuating the end of each verse with a nasty-sounding "Blechhh!" Similarly, he marks the climax of "Bats Amongst Heathens" with a wretched throat noise, more gargle than scream. Bagshaw too wrings maximum drama out of limited materials. Serpentine Path contains no trace of the eerie, clean-toned moodsetting the guitarist employs on recent Ramesses records like last year's Possessed by the Rise of Magik, but when Bagshaw does go for a flourish, it counts: His howling harmonies on the intro to "Obsoletion" offer a hint of sky-kissing psychedelia amid the roiling doom magma.
Modest variations in tempo and texture add intrigue to this staunchly unwavering set. "Aphelion"-- the shortest and fastest track-- plays like a blast of rock'n'roll hedonism, offsetting the bleak expanse that surrounds it; the song's stomping, call-and-response chorus ought to make it a live favorite if Serpentine Path ("predominantly a recording project," in the words of Newman) ever decides to take the stage. In contrast, "Beyond the Dawn of Time" is as minimal as doom metal gets this side of early Sunn O))). The song consists of just four sinister chords, which alternate with vast, dizzying rests-- an apt evocation of the cosmic dread Lipynsky describes in the lyrics ("Shadow of eternity draping the earth/ A speck of dust in a desert of humanity"). "Only a Monolith Remains", Serpentine Path's outstanding closer, sums up the record's different strategies, building from a zombified trudge to a writhing, tripped-out shimmy before grinding back down to near stasis, with Verni pounding out a death knell on what sounds like a blacksmith's anvil.
Microscopic diversity aside, Serpentine Path is an unapologetically straightforward statement, one that's either going to sound awesomely monolithic or numbingly monotonous depending on the listener's appetite for extreme doom. But on its own terms, the album is highly successful. Unearthly Trance were a band that always seemed intent on exploring new terrain; Serpentine Path, on the other hand, burrow deep into their chosen niche, nourishing themseves on the soil and growing to hulking size. Lipynsky, Bagshaw, Newman, and Verni make their cramped hovel feel like a universe unto itself.
