The Mystic Path to the Netherworld

Order of the Ebon Hand might just be the first metal band of note to have drawn its moniker from a Magic: the Gathering playing card, but the novelty of that fact is not without its cost. That cost is the one of the ugliest fucking album covers I have ever witnessed in my 30 whatever years with all of the medium and its subgenres. Who designed this awful, stringy abstraction of medusa? I realize the band's name is lengthy, but why the terrible choice in horizontal and vertical scrawl? Perhaps these Greeks wanted to insure that we'd use our aural sense to its fullest by blinding us and voiding us of any distraction, but The Mystic Path to the Netherworld is such a visual travesty that it nearly withered off my nose and various other appendages too...

But surely the music would redeem it, right? Not quite. The Mystic Path to the Netherworld is pretty indistinct from most of the second or third tier European black metal in the 90s, joining such names as Hecate Enthroned or Ancient (beyond their first album) in the footfalls of far mightier acts. Straight, driving black with an excess of blast beats that never at any time feel compelling or extreme, with ghoulish, resonant vocals and the occasional use of keyboards to provide an orchestrated dimension above and beyond the core mediocrity. The band also uses acoustic segues (as in "Under a Pale Moonlight"), but they're rarely catchy and often the product of sloppy transitions, nor do the cleaner, Gothic spoken vocals ever help. Once in awhile you'll get a passable, aggressive tune like "Fallen Hierarchy" or "Behold the Sign of a New Era", but neither even hints at the memorable craftsmanship of their many superior peers. I won't even dwell on the terribly bloated "Tears in Red", nearly 11 minutes of tedium with a few sparse, atmospheric moments of real weight.

Unfortunately, everything about Order of the Ebon Hand (at this point) reeks of 'me too' metal, and 1997 was the year that the black levee was beginning to sag under the flood of no talents and doppelgangers. Not that this is total shit for a debut, but there is simply nothing about it to recommend it above anything else, and it lacks even the more distinct Greek characteristics of its countrymen. The production is average, the vocals average, the riffs largely forgettable, and the variation betrayed by the band’s general inability to transition effectively through tempos and contrasts. The Mystic Path to the Netherworld was tapped out of mana before it entered the match.

-autothrall
http://www.fromthedustreturned.com

Order Of The Ebon Hand hail from Greece. They are one of the most underrated black metal bands that this world has ever seen. That's mainly due to the fact that their supreme first album, was only pressed in 500 copies worldwide! That hold them back to being an obscure band of the underground, added the problems that every metal band in Greece faced during the previous decade.

Their debut album, "Mystic Path To The Netherworld" is a supreme mixture of raw black metal riffage and melancholic melodies, mainly built on the keyboards. The guitars really "bend" with the keys and create an awesome result. The songs have an epic/dark aura surrounding them which persuates the listener from the first moment.
The bass can be heard throughout the record, sometimes as a rhythm guitar something rare for a black metal release. The vocals are totally natural, not machine-made grunts (like Shagrath for example) and that adds authenticity. All songs have excellent black metal riffing and drumming, precise and raw where it has to be aggressive, dark and mid-tempo where it has sound "mystical"
In my opinion, "Mystic..." belongs to the three best black metal records that ever came out of Greece. It's too bad that this album is nowadays almost impossible to find and it is a highly sought after collectors item for every die-hard black metal maniac.
If you like black metal in the vein of Emperor, Limbonic Art (but with a more "raw" approach) and some greek bands like old Necromantia and Septic Flesh, you should definitely check this out (in what way you can). Awesome.

Everytime I hear albums from the Greek Black Metal scene, I wonder why it is so underrated. Same counts for Order of the Ebon Hand's "The Mystic Path to the Netherworld.

The band has a definite influence which can be heard well, especially in the keyboard and guitar work - Septic Flesh. The soaring leads remind one of SF's "Esoptron" and "Ophidian Wheel" albums. Like SF, they manage to put a deep emotional feeling into their lead work, it almost feels like a second voice. The rhythm guitars themselves are not the most impressive, but do their job - they give the main focus to the tremendous leads. There is also a not-so-small amount of clean guitar parts here, which almost give a folky, yet dark feeling to the music.

The drumming is also very strong, there are lots of blastbeats, but no "blasturbating" like in too many black metal bands nowadays. Other techniques are used to form a fairly diverse drumming style.

Merkaal's vocals are very diverse, his work ranges from great clean background singing to ordinary Black Metal screeches and a few deeper, muffled growls.

Another remarkable point is the bass. It's VERY audible and often replaces the rhythm guitar while the lead guitar shreds away. It fits very well into the sometimes pretty weird and haunting atmosphere of the album. There are even some rather-complex basslines in there, most notably in the song "While the Gods Laugh".

So far, I've listened to a fair amount of Greek Black and Death Metal releases, and "The Mystic Path to the Netherworld" is one of the greater ones in my collection.

Recommended to all fans of atmospheric Black Metal.