A Broken Path by Runway 11

“A Broken Path” by Runway 11 takes influence from many rock genres. The intro lands somewhere between “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” by Deep Blue Something and Audioslave. The intro has the pop brightness of “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” and the vocal tone is similar as well, but the delivery of the vocals is stylistically like Audioslave in that it feels closed-mouthed, mumbled, or slurred, which is how the vocals in Audioslave verses are usually sung, like in “Show Me How To Live.” The chord progression is interesting and the melodies are smooth. The vocals throughout the song have pleasing harmonies and layering. The lyrics play on light and dark imagery. Of course, with the title being “A Broken Path,” the immediate imagery would be darkness, but the lyrics “It’s a sunny day” often repeat, giving us the scenery of light. Using both sides of the concept, the light imagery intensifies the dark themes of the song. Some other notable lyrics that exemplify the dark themes are “I don’t want to fade away like the thoughts of yesterday; they come and go” and “ I don’t want forgiveness.”

Around the four minute mark of the song, there is a small instrumental break. Here, there are some hard rock and metal influences made apparent, particularly in the rhythms of the electric guitar. They are very similar to what is typical in a metal song’s breakdown section. Shortly after, the song fully leans into the metal genre. The transition feels so effortless and smooth since many of the genre’s elements had been sprinkled in through the rest of the song, such as the organ sound in the beginning, the rhythms in the instrumental break, and the strings that carry over from the end of the instrumental break. This second half of the song is similar to some gothic and symphonic metal artists such as Within Temptation and Epica. Because of the smooth transition and consistency in emotions from the first half to the second half, the song still feels whole. Although metal is usually perceived as angry or aggressive, its use in this section actually exemplifies some of the nuanced emotions.

Runway 11 does an excellent job of progressing the lyrical story and themes with changing musical elements. The foreshadowing of instruments and rhythms connects each part of the song to keep it feeling like one universe. And because of the different genre prominences in each part, listeners who are fans of several genres under the rock category will enjoy “A Broken Path.”