• Part I: Review

Pathosray is an Italian progressive metal band that started off in 2001 and Sunless Skies is their 2nd full length album released in 2009 via Worldwide – Frontiers Records || Japan – Soundholic Records.

The album was mixed / mastered in Sweden by Johan Ornborg and Jens Bogren at Fascination Street Studios (Symphony X, Hammerfall, Opeth, Katatonia, etc).

The band’s influences range from Evergrey, Dream Theater, Fates Warning, Death, Le Orme, Mike Oldfield, Opeth, Symphony-X, Orphaned Land, GardenWall, Nevermore, etc. So prospective listeners to the band can know what to expect, something which I found closer to Evergrey/Fates Warning than Death/Opeth, since there isn’t enough ‘hatred’ in the music in my opinion to give it a death metal edge. Nevertheless, the album is a surely one of the top progressive albums of 2009, and that’s supported by the many high ratings this album has obtained by critics and fans alike.

  • Which songs to listen to?

Crown of Thorns / Poltergeist

The most progressive songs on the album in my opinion, for fans of Dream Theatre and Symphony-X for sure.

  • Sons of the Sunless Skies

My personal favorite song off the album, an extremely catchy song (just check out the chorus).

  • Behind the Shadows

Another side of Pathosray on this one, this melodic gem is certainly one of the most catchy songs on the album.

Any one of these songs are sufficient to further explore the album. There are no poor songs there and the flow is carefully taken care of. I have to say that the album is close to perfect when it comes to knowing the balance between being musically technical and being catchy and listenable. This band serves that purpose with melodies, techniques and various moods during the entire album. A must check out album for this rising band from Italy. Read the interview below with the band’s bassist Fabio D’amore and get some answers on how does Pathosray work.

  • Part II: Interview with Pathosray’s bassist/bac vox Fabio D’Amore
  • Many hailed Pathosray as the most promising act in Italy and in progressive metal today. What do you think about that?

Well, first of all thanks a lot for remembering me that 😉

Yes, that’s what some magazines and fans said, after our first release.

Honestly, I don’t feel like giving my opinion about Pathosray, but of course, as for my personal tastes and coherence of what we’ve been doing till now, I think the band has got a big potential, between the other bands we’ve got in Italy and around the world.

  • To whom would you recommend this album? I guess that depends on your influences as a band and the musical path you’ve chosen?

I think that an album as “Sunless Skies” could be loved either from mainly progressive fans, but also the ones that like melodic metal in general and any kind of well arranged, but always direct, music.

We tried to melt all our personal influences in there, starting from progressive music, hard – rock, symphonic, electronic, a touch of dark, and a lot of melodies. We wanted a kind of album that had in all the songs a huge amount of possibility to be a stand-alone hitting track, d’you know what I mean?

There are some significant differences from the first album, but I think our trademark remained the same.

  • Which bands do you wish to play with live?

We already played together with very big and great acts all around the world, as Iced Earth, Amorphis, Riverside, Iron Saviour, Jon Oliva’s Pain, Threshold, Circus Maximus, Seventh Wonder, Sons of Seasons
and much more
and we’re really proud of that – but of course I’d personally like to play also together with band like Kamelot, Opeth, Pain of Salvation
and who knows? Maybe DT and Porcupine Tree?? J Now you could get my musical tastes from that
eheh


  • How would you describe the flow of the album? Some songs have guest vocals and are less aggressive than others…

Yes, exactly, you’ve got the point. “Sunless Skies” has a lot of different kind tracks within. You can find some very aggressive tracks, like Crown of Thorns, very melodic, like Behind the Shadows and Aurora, more sperimental as Quantic Enigma, atmospheric as Perpetual Eclipse, a kind of ballad with In Your Arms, with a big impact as The Coldest Lullaby and epic as Sons of the Sunless Sky and Poltergeist. As you can see, you can find a variety of sounds and moods, and the order is not casual at all: we wanted to have aggressive and melodic parts melting constantly during the album. As you correctly said, we had some female guests on the album: Klaaire, also singer of Syrayde, the other band me and Ivan have (we’re finishing the debut during these days
) and Silvia Marchesan.

Klaaire sang on The Coldest Lullaby, dueting with Marco, and giving a lot of power but also melody to the song. Instead, Silvia has got a very melodic and soul voice, and we asked her to sing and improvise on the interlude song Perpetual Eclipse and at the end of Poltergeist. The result, in both cases, was very impressive and that’s exactly what we were looking for!

  • What’s the lyrical theme behind Sunless Skies?

“Sunless Skies” talks about several actual themes, that we wanted to face and speak about. Of course, it’s not a concept album, neither for music nor for lyrics, but there’s a keen conjunction between the songs, that want to denounce abuses and injustices on several topics, as politics, religion, love, dependence, and disease


  • Are you guys writing any new material for an upcoming release?

We’ll start working on the new material shortly. The new album will be totally different than “Sunless Skies” and “Pathosray”, and it will take a bit more to work and arrange it. But I can say that our fans won’t be disappointed and we do hope to expand even more our range of fans around the globe.

We’ll also work in a different way than the previous album and that’s why we’re also excited about starting to work as soon as possible!

  • Any last words for Lebmetal.com readers and Pathosray fans?

We would like to thank the whole Lebmetal.com staff and all readers and fans who will take a look into this article and discover the band thanks to it.

We’ll be back during the year with some exciting news, lives and of course, stay updated to follow the course of this new, 3rd album!

Rock on!

  • Links

Buy Sunless Skies on Amazon