359 - The Path of Ayin

359 - The Path of Ayin (SCHATTENKULT Produktionen CD 2016)

I’m really glad that to have a chance to check most of recent Schattenkult Produktionen releases, because this way I managed to find some really good bands that I never heard about before. 359 is yet another cool discovery from this label’s roster. This project hails from Finland and is led by Sunken, who is (or maybe was?) also involved in couple of other unknown bands. As 359 he did one demo in 2008 and now he presents us “The Path of Ayin” EP, with three tracks of traditional, cold sounding harsh black metal.

And this short description should say everything about 359’s sound and style. Because you should not anticipate anything new or extraordinary from this obscure project, rather that classic take on Scandinavian second wave of black metal. “The Path of Ayin” is comparable to Darkthrone, Urgehal, Gorgoroth, Beastcraft, Koldbrann, Pest (Sweden), Craft, Horna, Sargeist and so on and on… You know what sort of black metal I mean. Whether 359 is worth of your attention or not, I’ll leave this for you to decide. “The Path of Ayin” is nothing special, it’s not something what will interest many… but if you worship that style of music, then I am sure you will like 359 a lot. I do think it’s typical, but solid and good enough effort, I like the harshness and hateful, cold aura of the music from “The Path of Ayin”. And I especially liked the track called “Radiate Your Hopelessness”, with its ferocious, fast playing, great riffs and killer vocals. It’s definitely the best song here. But the other two are not bad at all also.

And that’s it, I don’t have anything more to write about it. Three songs and twenty minutes of pure black metal, grab it if you like such kind of stuff.

Standout track: “Radiate Your Hopelessness”

Final rate: 65/100