I've written about Garden Wall in a few posts already, so I won't cover too much of that again. Path of Dreams is their second album, and the one I point to as the beginning of the sound they are most famous for. As I've said before, Garden Wall pretty much marched to their own drummer. While listening, whatever you think might happen, probably won't. Like watching the original Game of Thrones episodes, it defies all normal convention. Looking like a couple of mental patients on the back cover (on purpose I presume...), Path of Dreams fulfills that one expectation, especially considering Alessandro Seravalle's vocal delivery. This is one of those albums that ostensibly gets filed with prog metal, but could just as easily be true progressive rock (though not the kind that what we typically associate Italy with). Any way you slice it, complexity is its calling card. Almost every track here requires multiple listens to absorb. My favorite is 'The Bride of the Wind' as it contains the album's most memorable melody, and its placement in the album order is bizarre and fascinating. Of course it is. The 1990s harbored all sorts of these odd progressive bands that are mostly forgotten today. Rediscovery awaits, but I'm certainly glad to have lived it real time. If you're looking for something different - and very progressive - Garden Wall is a band worth following. And Path of Dreams is one of the easier albums to get into compared to some of their others.
As an aside, can someone enlighten me on the language used in Maj di Muart? I presume it's a regional dialect, as the group's origins are very close to Slovenia and Austria. I tried typing the lyrics into Google Translate but it kept flipping back and forth between Italian and Krio, the latter is a Creole type language spoken in Sierra Leone. Ah wait - I think I answered my own question after further research: Friulian it's called. It's a part of Italy I've never been to. Though I've been on a train through it coming from Slovenia. Need to go...
Ownership: CD: 1994 Music is Intelligence (Germany). Jewel case release with recording details, lyrics, and paintings. Purchased new near the time of release. You can still buy this album on the used market dirt cheap. Forgotten I tell you, they are forgotten.
1995; 8/9/13; 7/25/22 (new entry)
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