Metal, like all genres, has its low spots and SERPENTINE PATH certainly isn't the highest spot. When it comes to Doom Metal there are two kinds of bands, good classic bands and Stoner Metal bands. Good Doom bands include (of course) BLACK SABBATH, TROUBLE, CATHEDRAL, and a few others. Stoner / Doom bands include the likes of MASTADON, HIGH ON FIRE, and many others. SERPENTINE PATH sadly falls into the second category. They have all the characteristics of a stoner metal band; highly distorted down tuned guitars, muffled drums, and groggy vocals. Although at times the vocals tend to lean towards a more death metal style on this record. The lack of solos on this album is also something to be noted as there none to be found at all. The tempo over the whole album is exceedingly slow which would be fine if they had some creative riffs to lay over the boring tempos but the guitars just seem to follow, mimicking the tempo leaving much to be desired. There were some interesting parts but they were the spoken word intros to a few of the songs. Some people think watching paint dry is boring, obviously they've never heard this cd. Yes, "Serpentine Path" may very well be the longest 42 minutes of my life.

"Arrows" starts the album off with a spoken word intro talking about the number of the beast. It sounded promising until the sludgy instruments came in and the tempo dropped dramatically. Nothing really changes besides the song titles over the next eight tracks. The monotony is broken up at track number four "Beyond the Dawn of Time". Its intro is the other spoken word intro and after that it resumes the slug like pace. At times on this track it may appear that time itself is moving in the opposite direction. It sounds like you are listening to the same minute worth of music repeated six times in a row. The last two songs "Compendium Of Suffering" and "Only a Monolith Remains" are also contenders for slowest song of the album.

If you want my personal opinion I would advise against purchasing it. If they were to hand out awards for every album that came out in 2012 it wouldn't surprise me if "Serpentine Path" won the slowest album of the year.