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Paragon Records is perhaps not the most regular provider of metal music, but some of the releases I got from them were very good. Bands like Celestia, Aetherius Obscuritas, Vorkuta, Biolick and Skyforger brought home great releases that I had the chance to review.

Darkestrah is the latest addition to my list of special music received from that label. The Middle East origin of this band is obvious, and also very present in their music. Maybe not the first act to use Oriental tonalities, still Darkestrah makes a crafty use of traditional instruments into their Black Metal structure, while injecting a little something from their esoteric roots. In other words, they have included shamanic references by means of percussions, voices and other more exotic instruments in their compositions. All this good stuff adds up to an excellent and melodic opus of epic Black Metal. The Great Silk Road counts only five songs, but the long lasting pleasures found on track 1, 2 and 4 largely contribute in making this album almost reach the 60 minute mark. By their epic, varied and long developing nature, those easily get my vote for the best compositions on this disc, although none of the tracks deserve to be quoted as being bad.

The Great Silk Road contains great atmosphere, lots of variety in the instrumentation (traditional as well as conventional metal ones), even the always pleasant acoustic guitar, plus samplings and ambiance. Hard not to create a superb epic journey when you add all these elements with talent and a very good sound production.