Cyprus Rock Times presents:

'IRA IMPERIUM'

A new masterpiece is born!

(International Special Edition)

The release of the 'Terra Incognita' album by Arrayan Path was one of last year's most pleasant surprises. The band, without an official release since the now legendary 'Return to Macedonia' album back in 2004, came back with a real "vengeance"! In my original album review I wrote that 'Terra Incognita' was not only one of the best albums ever released by a Cypriot band, but also one of the best metal albums released in 2010! It was perhaps a bold statement to make at such an early stage of the release, but I felt really confident about what my ears were experiencing ...

... and I was totally right! The album became one of the biggest ever commercial successes by a Cypriot band, and achieved rave reviews in numerous international magazines and webzines. Arrayan Path were the only metal band to be nominated for IMPALA’s European Independent Album of the Year Award! Even the mighty Bruce Dickinson played a track from the album during his BBC radio show, and offered some positive comments as well!

Fortunately, we didn't have to wait six years for another Arrayan Path release. From November the 4th (November the 7th in the UK), the metal world will have the chance to experience another Arrayan Path offering, entitled 'Ira Imperium'! Cyprus Rock Times are celebrating the new album with a "deluxe" electronic decision, which contains the following:

- An extended interview with the founder, vocalist extraordinaire, principal composer, and mastermind of the Arrayan Path project, Mr. Nicholas Leptos. This is a very enjoyable section, since Nicholas' comments are refreshingly frank and detailed! He also provides us with some very interesting trivia information, especially for his cooperation in this album with none other than the famous ex-Black Sabbath singer, Mr. Tony Martin!

- The editor's first impressions on the new Arrayan Path album, as these were noted during the listening party organised by the band's label Pitch Black Records. It was really a great honour to be among the first people who experienced this masterpiece in its entirety!

- An "All things Arrayan Path" information section!

- Free streaming of four songs from the new Arrayan Path 'Ira Imperium' album, through our dedicated radio player!

- Last, but certainly not least, a high-quality free download of the hyper-epic anthem 'The Fall of Mardonius' taken from the 'Ira Imperium' album! Click below to get it NOW!

I would like to sincerely thank Nicholas Leptos, as well as Phivos Papadopoulos (from the band's label Pitch Black Records), for all the support they provided in the preparation of this Issue. Their kind permission to offer some of the album's songs for free streaming and downloading purposes, will be hugely appreciated by all CyRock readers!

Enjoy!

The editor

Cyprus Rock Times: The main topic of our interview is the release of the new Arrayan Path's album 'Ira Imperium'! Allow me however to start by going a little bit back in time: Arrayan Path became very popular in Cyprus and Greece, upon the release of the 'Return to Macedonia' album back in 2004, which is now considered to have 'cult' status! Why there was such a gap between the release of 'Road To Macedonia' and the subsequent release of 'Terra Incognita'?;

Nicholas Leptos: First of all I would like to thank you for your interest in ARRAYAN PATH. This past year has been great for us. With ‘Terra incognita’ we brought back the band from its 6-year hiatus and we did it in the best way possible. I think ‘Terra’ was a very strong album and believe it or not, it didn’t take that long to compose.

Concerning ‘Road to Macedonia’; I think it was all too innocent back then. We weren’t even sure what kind of music (or better, what kind of metal) we wanted to play and we kind of went with our gut. I mean, we loved Iron Maiden and you can see that in most of the songs but we also had songs like ‘Immortal Beloved’ which were clearly influenced by Y.J.Malmsteen ballads and ‘The Liberation Song’ which was influenced by Blind Guardian. When we were writing and recording this album we didn’t know the effect and success it would have. Especially in Greece it was adored like few others. Maybe the fact that we didn’t realize this effect on people was the main reason why the band was put on ice.

So I moved on to re-uniting with my old school band PRODIGAL EARTH and we had a great album with them too. I also recorded the first (and last?) DIPHTHERIA album which was also a fun thing to do. I don’t know the exact moment that I decided to re-activate ARRYAN PATH. I think it had a lot to do with reading some old reviews of ‘Macedonia’ online!!

Cyprus Rock Times: The reputation of the band achieved international heights with last year's release of 'Terra Incognita'! In an era where thousands of bands around the world are fighting for attention, were you surprised by the commercial and critical success of 'Terra Incognita'? Now that it has been a year and a half since the album's release, what's your view on this album;

Nicholas Leptos: You know, when ‘Terra’ was out, some people were complaining that it was not as epic as ‘Macedonia’. Now the same people are ‘warning’ me about the next album and that it better be as good as ‘Terra’! I think that with ‘Terra incognita’ we kept the quality of the songs high and I hope that people will think the same for the next album too. And I will not lie to you; I did have some stress on whether people would like it because I know that there would be some comparison with the previous album.

It is the same thoughts I’m having now about ‘Ira Imperium’. Sometimes when listening to the album from beginning to end you might think ‘oh shit it’s not as strong as the previous album’. But the people who are ‘outside’ of all this will re-assure you that you are exaggerating so it’s always good to take a step back and stop listening to the album for a while ha-ha!

Cyprus Rock Times: And God created ... 'Ira Imperium'! Truth is that I was originally expecting a 'Terra Incognita 2' - type of album. I would have really been more than satisfied if you had just managed to achieve the same compositional and technical quality levels! I was pleasantly surprised / shocked to hear something even better, much more progressive, but with the same Arrayan Path trademark sound! What was your approach when developing the songs for 'Ira Imperium'? Was it a conscious change of direction, or you consider it to be just a natural evolution of the band's sound?

Nicholas Leptos: I’m not sure the term ‘natural evolution of music’ even exists. Somebody writes the music so somebody must think of the music and record it! So I think it was a conscious change of direction as it is in every band. If a band decides to go ‘heavier’ it’s because the members of the band decided to do so. And in our case, yes, we decided to speed things up a little bit. You can still find epic metal songs and other ones that could have been in ‘Terra incognita’ but at the same time you can find songs that could never have been in ‘Terra incognita’!

I think that in our new record every song has its own personality. There’s a lot of variety in songs! There’s no way of saying ‘This is a power metal album’ or ‘this is an epic metal album’. It’s simply ARRAYAN PATH! Everything our fans like in our band is there!

Cyprus Rock Times: Are there any changes to the lyrical concept of 'Ira Imperium', in relation to the previous band's albums?;

Nicholas Leptos: Well not really. In our albums we usually talk about everything. There are no limits as to what story we’re going to tell. Usually it’s history, legends and mythology but not always. For example the song ‘Open Season’ from our previous album talks about police brutality. Go figure!

Cyprus Rock Times: What's your favorite song in the album? Which song do you believe represents better its overall "essence"? Finally, which song do you believe that it will be mostly loved by the fans?

Nicholas Leptos: Again, I will not say the cliché ‘They are all my children etc’! I mean come on! Of course I have a favourite and at the moment it’s ‘Katherine of Aragon’. Well, ‘Gnosis of Prometheus’, ‘Amenophis’ and ‘Lost Ithaca’ also have a special place in my heart but I’m sure this is a kind of record from which every person will have a different ‘favourite’ song.

I am sure that most will find ‘The Fall of Mardonius’ interesting, as it is the most epic in the album and we’re planning to play it live many times! It was written to be played live. But as I said, there is not a song that really represents the whole album.

Cyprus Rock Times: Tony Martin's participation in the song 'Ira Imperium (The Damned)' is certainly one of the album's highlights. Tell us about this cooperation. How did it come about?;

Nicholas Leptos: I found Tony Martin on facebook and I sent him a request with a note saying that ‘I know that probably you have 2 or 3 offers per day but it would be an honour to sing a duet with you so please check out the following links’. I think I gave him the link for ‘Elegy’, ‘The Blood Remains on the Believer’ and ‘Cassiopeia’. One month later (!) he answered me, saying that he checked out the songs and he really thought that we got something good going on there, but it would be difficult for him to do it and that he can’t promise anything. But he told me to send him the song (the new one) to see if he would like it.

Mr. Tony Martin

At the time I hadn’t decided which song to send him. I didn’t want to send him a power metal song because I thought this might lead him to say no. So I decided to send a straight-forward metal song like ‘Ira Imperium’. A few weeks later he sent me an e-mail saying that he really liked the song and that he will send some vocals based on the voice line I gave him and we’d see if we could make this happen. Next afternoon I get the whole demo finished and ready! He put the lead voice, the harmonies, the choirs (he recorded more than 50 or 60 tracks of choirs!) and he wrote that it would be great to arrange this song live and make it theatrical and dress up the choir in traditional clothes!

It was such a surprise for me that he took the time to brainstorm about how we could do this song better! He wanted the vocals to add ‘drama’ to the song and lift it up! He also told me to change the song title to ‘The Damned’. I didn’t really want that so we used it in the parenthesis ha-ha! One other funny thing that happened was that in the demo I put one high-pitched Tate-like scream and his words were ‘Lose the scream, you don’t need it! He did slightly change the voice lines and added some great lyrics and here it is! A great experience for me and the band ... and he is such a great guy too!

Cyprus Rock Times: I didn't have the chance to listen to 'Ira Imperium' in suitable conditions in order to evaluate properly the production quality. However, based on the single '77 Day 'til Doomsday', I can say that Vagelis Maranis has done an amazing job once again! Vagelis also participates as a backing vocalist in some 'Ira Imperium' songs. What was his overall contribution in the making of 'Ira Imperium'? Can we consider him to be an unofficial band member?

Nicholas Leptos: I think Vagelis has done a very good job in terms of production and mixing. It seems that as we become better musicians he at the same time becomes a better producer. He has incredible knowledge on how to get the perfect metal sound and he likes the bands to sound tight and heavy. He is very strict during the ‘takes’ and he wants things to be done a certain way. In this album we wanted to bring the drums a bit to the ‘front’ and we kept the rhythm guitars ‘back’ in a way and still the album sounds so heavy! So yes, you need to be a good engineer to do that.

Vagelis Maranis: Production & Backing Vocals

Cyprus Rock Times: Alexis Kleidaras of the legendary Greek metal band Deceptor is now a member of Arrayan Path! I was really happy to hear this, since Deceptor's demo was considered to be a classic at its era! How did Alexis got involved with the band?

Nicholas Leptos: Actually Alexis played some lead guitar in ‘Terra Incognita’ as well. Due to professional reasons my brother couldn’t travel to Germany for the recordings so Alexis kind of ‘saved the day’ and recorded most guitars. We didn’t really talk about having him as a full time member but he is a great friend and he can record with ARRAYAN PATH for as long as he wishes. As far as I am concerned our door is always open to him!

Alexis Kleidaras: Guitars

Cyprus Rock Times: Pitch Black Records has already informed us that another Arrayan Path album called 'Stigmata' is scheduled for an early 2012 release! What is the reason for a second successive release in such a short period of time? Is there any connection between the 'Ira Imperium' and 'Stigmata' albums? Should we anticipate more surprises?

Nicholas Leptos: You know, if a band is active and has the thirst to write music, then a band should never stop writing and recording. I don’t believe in one album every 4 years. No one is going to wait for you to get your ass off the chair and write music. If you are an active band then you should constantly record music. Manowar recorded 2 albums in one year, Maiden did the same, Pink Floyd, Kiss etc. If you have material (not leftovers from the sessions of your previous album!) then you should record it as soon as possible.

As for ‘Stigmata’, we thought of calling it ‘Stigmata: Ira Imperium pt.2’ because it has the same feel as ‘Ira Imperium’ and both albums share this heaviness and dark feeling. But we haven’t decided yet on the full title. It will either be ‘Stigmata’ or ‘Stigmata: Ira Imperium pt.2’. Since ‘Ira imperium’ was delayed by a couple of months, consequently the next album will also be delayed. Probably around May or June it’s going to be out.

Cyprus Rock Times: Mark Hunter of Chimaira, in a recent Twitter coversation between himself, Brian Slagel and fans, stated (among many other things) the following: "Actually if you are starting a band, the first question should be "why" ... What are your motives? What do you think it will be like?". When you were starting the Arrayan Path band in Boston back in 1997, did you have similar thoughts? Now, that you have considerable experience from Arrayan Path and all the other bands that you have participated in, what would be your suggestions to young people who want to start a band?

Nicholas Leptos: I know I’m speaking for at least 90% of musicians when I say that I started this band with a need to create and enjoy music and have fun. I didn’t start with a specific goal. I can tell you my goal now and that is to write some good albums that people will remember me by.

And that is what everyone should keep in mind when starting a band: Don’t start the band just to get girls or to pose with your guitar. Don’t try to show everyone that you’re a kick-ass virtuoso or that you can write better songs than the others. Start a band to satisfy your creative urges and offer something to the scene. Don’t keep the songs to yourself. Record them! Don’t be discouraged by bad reviews. There is no band on this earth that hears only good things. In fact, some legends of heavy metal are being accused all over forums as we speak. So accept the fact that not everybody will like your music. If you have a successful record don’t stop there. Write music even though it might not be as good. There’s no other way of knowing. And the most important thing: D.I.Y works when you gain some experience in the industry. When you start out it is important to work with people who know what they’re doing and can give you the guidelines to maybe ‘do it yourself’ later on!

Cyprus Rock Times: Touring ... My understanding is that you are planning a (highly anticipated & much deserved!) headlining tour in the island, on the occasion of the 'Ira Imperium' release. Any special plans for this tour? Have you scheduled any live apperances in Europe or anywhere else in the world?

Nicholas Leptos: Yes, we’re going to try and play in all the cities of Cyprus and we have planned 2 shows in Athens and Thessaloniki. As soon as the album is out we will study every potential offer to play abroad and decide. But for the near future we have the 2 shows in Greece and maybe 3 or 4 in Cyprus.

Cyprus Rock Times: I will finish this small interview by asking you to complete one of the "classic" CyRock lists: What are, in your opinion, the five best metal albums ever released ... from a vocals-only erspective?

Nicholas Leptos: Oh.. The vocals-only list will definitely be different from the ‘general’ list. So, after a lot of thought here it is:

1. Piece of Mind (Iron Maiden)

2. Headless Cross (Black Sabbath)

3. Keeper of the Seven Keys pt. 2 (Helloween)

4. Paradise Lost (Symphony X)

5. The Call (Heed)!

Cyprus Rock Times: Thank you very much for your time and your answers! We wish you the best for the band's new release, and we will be seeing you live on stage shortly!

Nicholas Leptos: Thanks for your interview and for your great questions. We’ll see you all soon on stage! Remember our album ‘Ira Imperium’ is out 4th of November!

(continue to next column)

Band Record Company:

Pitch Black Records

Band's Bio:

ARRAYAN PATH (formerly Arryan Path) is the personal project of singer/songwriter Nicholas Leptos which came together in 1997 with Nicholas’ friend, guitarist Clement Fung. Throughout the years Nicholas has had great help from his brother Socrates Leptos as well as others.

Following their two demos (“Return to Troy”, 1999 and “Osiris”, 2000) the band’s debut album, “Road to Macedonia” was released in 2004 by Greek label Steel Gallery Records. As a result of this album’s solid musicianship and great epic atmosphere the band quickly gained a huge following, especially in Greece. This album is has attained a cult status now and new fans are always eager to acquire it.

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                The CyRock Team (rockcyprus at gmail.com - rockcyprus at hotmail.com)