Review: delving – All Paths Diverge

Style: progressive rock, stoner rock, psychedelic rock, krautrock (instrumental)
Recommended for fans of: Elder, Weedpecker, Elephant Tree
Country: Germany
Release date: 23 August, 2024

Such is the burden of the underground reviewer: realistically, I’m never going to get to write a full review of many of my favorite bands, such as Elder, for this blog. Luckily, in this case we have the next best thing. Founded and almost exclusively performed by Elder frontman Nick DiSalvo, delving operates as seemingly a spiritual continuation of his previous side project Gold & Silver, the style being also reminiscent of Elder’s unique 2019 EP The Gold & Silver Sessions. DiSalvo’s first album under the delving moniker, Hirschbrunnen in 2021, offered a glimpse of the ongoing shift in Elder’s sound and style, blending the soft psychedelic rock of The Gold & Silver Sessions with their earlier heavy stoner- and doom-infused metal to arrive at a subtly but noticeably different aesthetic. Reversing that trend towards lighter and more rock-oriented music, All Paths Diverge immediately sounds heavier than its predecessor, with new infusions of metal aesthetics mirroring the heavy psychedelic sounds of Omens or Innate Passage.

The reverberating guitar, keyboard, and percussion mash also characteristic of Elder permeates the bulk of All Paths Diverge, building both soundscape and melody and seamlessly interconnecting the two. Within both outfits, DiSalvo constructs some of the richest musical textures in all of prog—full, but not busy, moving forward with purpose but lingering just enough on each motif to fully develop the idea behind it. The line between melody and rhythm parts blurs until each part serves equally as both, showing delving’s krautrock (or post-rock) influences in how the music is made up of a compilation of intertwining layers rather than a single melody and its supporting parts. And yet, All Paths Diverge never really feels ambient, with only the introductory opening parts of certain tracks like “New Meridian” and “The Ascetic” being sparse enough to qualify. The music stays active, maintaining forward motion while still allowing the atmospheric elements and complex overlapping parts the space they need in order to unfurl to their fullest potential.

All Paths Diverge more heavily features spacey, psychedelic keyboard work than its parent project does—for example the atmospheric backgrounds in “Sentinel”—but as focus shifts more to the fuzzy guitars and echoing cymbal crashes (beginning with “Omnipresence”), the similarity to Elder grows more and more apparent. The chime-like keyboard arpeggios in the background particularly make the latter half of “Chain of Mind” sound exactly like an Elder track that could have fallen off the back of the truck while Innate Passage was being assembled (if not for the fact that it’s not quite ten minutes long, which seems to be their absolute minimum allowed song length at this point). It’s comforting to hear DiSalvo working more in a musical space that seems to interest him this much, and I’ll never turn down more of a good thing, though I was taken aback as I noticed how much—for good or for ill—All Paths Diverge acts as a continuation of Elder itself, especially when Hirschbrunnen (at least at the time) felt like a significant step in a different direction.

Although All Paths Diverge never gets boring, it also doesn’t quite attain the consistent mastery that we’ve seen from Elder over the years. Every track proves its own excellence, but only certain moments put forth the complete brilliance that DiSalvo has already demonstrated in this style while working with Elder. “New Meridian” and “The Ascetic” follow broadly the same structure as each other, providing excellent examples of the contrast between the different moods at work. With a first half featuring atmospheric synth effects to set the mood, both tracks transition abruptly but cleverly at the halfway mark into a much more in-your-face breakdown that carries the rest of the way to its conclusion. It takes two very different talents to bring such contrasting sections to life. The opening half, while pleasant, doesn’t quite live up to the outright excitement that follows. While both parts individually serve their own purposes, the latter section overshadows the former with how much more bold and memorable it is, and without more direct connections to link them, the first part fades quickly from the listener’s memory in spite of its significant contribution to the buildup and payoff of the track as a whole.

Even more so than Hirschbrunnen, All Paths Diverge feels like a slimmed-down Elder project, equally creative and well-constructed but smaller in scope and ambition. Which version you prefer is naturally a question of personal taste above anything else, but delving certainly measures up alongside the other vaunted works of the project’s creator. Nick DiSalvo demonstrates the same creativity and talent here that he has already become known for, with some small personal touches to make this project more his own. While the result lacks some of the consistent greatness that has driven the success of one of my favorite bands, its high moments hit just as hard, making for an album worthy of praise no matter how lofty the standards set by its musical cousin.

Recommended tracks: Omnipresence, Chain of Mind, New Meridian, The Ascetic
You may also like: Gold & Silver, Papir, Son Cesano, Himmellegeme
Final verdict: 8/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | YouTube | Facebook | Instagram

Label: Stickman Records (Europe) – Bandcamp | Website | Facebook,
Blues Funeral (US) – Bandcamp | Website | Facebook

delving is:
– Nicholas DiSalvo (written and performed by)
With guests:
– Fabien de Menou (keyboards)
– Michael Risberg (guitar ambiance, “Zodiak”)