When I heard George "Corpsegrinder" Fisher had agreed to do vocals for Floridian death metallers Paths Of Possession’s Metal Blade Records debut, my reaction was the same as pretty much every person reading this review right now; "Yeah, so what?" The last time Fisher had been involved in the recording of a good album was in 1996 with the releases of Monstrosity’s Millennium and Cannibal Corpse’s Vile. It wasn’t until after listening to Cannibal Corpse’s promising offering Kill that I decided to go back and give his side project’s Metal Blade debut a listen.

Having never listened to any of Paths Of Possession’s earlier material I had no idea what to expect the first time I listened to this album. I knew former Morbid Angel guitarist Richard Brunelle played a big role in the song writing of the band’s two previous efforts before parting ways with the band prior to the addition of George Fisher, so I assumed it would probably technical Floridian death metal. I knew not to expect a Cannibal Corpse clone, but the last thing I expected to hear emanating from my speakers after putting Promises Of Blood in my stereo was European-styled melodic death metal fused with emo-metal.

To put it simply, Paths Of Possession are another of a thousand new bands trying to fuse the sound of At The Gates and In Flames with emo/metalcore. You know the type, the bands where all of the members look like short haired university students trying to be rebellious by sporting tattoos, dumb haircuts and thick black rimmed glasses.

The two things that separate Paths Of Possession from The Black Dahlia Murder and all of those fucking horrible bands are; George Fisher actually has hair on his balls and sounds like a fucking man when he snarls and there are some truly interesting and entertaining moments on "Promises In Blood". Paths Of Possession are obviously a talented band and could easily be a force playing Floridian styled death metal, but their choice of material on this effort is very stale. A few tracks stand out among the rest like "The Butchers Bargain" and "Bring Me The Head Of Christ", but for the most part you wouldn’t be able to differentiate the material on this album from a hundred other bands playing the same style if it weren’t for the powerful vocals of Corpsegrinder.

I’m not going to say this album is a total waste, because I admit to listening to it beginning to end more often than I expected to, so it does show great promise, but unless the band do some major changes in song writing I think I’m going to follow my gut and avoid any future releases.

Written By: Teufel