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Pain Of Salvation: The perfect element - part 1
15/11/10 || Altmer
Sweden is most known for death metal, musically. They have given us… let me see… Dismember. Unleashed. Entombed. Bloodbath. Seance. And quite a lot more. They’ve also given us quite some good black metal: Watain, Marduk, Dark Funeral. But on the softer spectrum, Sweden always lets us down: sure, Opeth straddle the line between death and prog, and there are more doom oriented bands such as Candlemass and friends, but that’s not what I am talking about. I’m talking about actual crossover with prog rock and related genres. You know, what most trve kvlt (or dess metal) heads call “gay”.
Well that same Sweden has given us the stalwarts from Eskilstuna called Pain of Salvation. More famous for being a bunch of complete eccentrics than their actual music (well, that is not completely true – but they are eccentrics, anyway), they have released quite a few albums by now. Their early stuff always had a very Dream Theater-esque quality to it – but with this album they started to drop that tag, and on the next few albums they shed it, raped the shit out of it, stomped on it, and tossed it away. But this album still resembles what we can call the original sound of prog metal, done the way it was supposed to sound when it was first conceived.
Upon listening to this album, you must beware. It features:
a) More time changes than a hooker receives AIDS viruses in Thailand.
b) Pretentious concept album lyrics that are almost intelligible if you have studied advanced philosophy, liberal arts and nuclear physics, all at the same time.
c) Vocals that run the gamut from low sneers to high-end screaming to a seductive croon, spiced up with some Mike Patton-esque rapping.
d) Riffs that wouldn’t sound out of place on “Scenes from a Memory”.
e) Guitar solos that want to make you reach for your guitar and smash it into bits and pieces.
This is more pretentious than you can imagine. It’s more hideously complex than you can dream of. It’s also, actually, an amazing album. For all the “look at us, we’re so deep and intelligent and better than you” posturing, they got away with it because, surprise, they can write real songs. “Ashes” is one of the best songs written using just three chords. “Falling” recalls David Gilmour’s best moments, proving that you don’t need to shred to solo like you mean it. And “Used” has thunderous riffs that knock you around your room for a bit, but draw you back down to earth for the really melodic and down-tempo chorus.
This album is actually best listened to as a whole – as with most albums of this ilk, it’s one of those discs that warrants the repeated spins. You might hate this upon first listen – you might ask yourself what the point is, or why these pretentious lyrics have to pervade every element of what Daniel Gildenlöw shits out. But once you spin it more than once, the repeated phrases will click. The double bass drumming on “Idioglossia” will make sense. The saccharine moments will become yummy. The heavy moments will want to make you jump. And the moody, sad moments will want to make you cry out the same tears as the protagonist.
What you need to remember is – if you keep listening, you will find that these songs click, and start sounding right. You’ll hate yourself for it in the beginning, hate yourself for trying. Then you’ll thank yourself for changing your mind. It happened to me, and thank fuck it did.
Recommendation: Stop taking the LSD that made you guys schizophrenic on later albums, and write more songs like you did here.
- Information
- Released: 2000
- Label: Inside Out
- Website: www.painofsalvation.com
- Band
- Daniel Gildenlöw: vocals, guitars
- Johan Hallgren: guitars, backing vocals
- Kristoffer Gildenlöw: bass
- Fredrik Hermansson: keyboards, backing vocals
- Johan Langell: drums
- Tracklist
- 01. Used
- 02. In The Flesh
- 03. Ashes
- 04. Morning on Earth
- 05. Idioglossia
- 06. Her Voices
- 07. Dedication
- 08. King of Loss
- 09. Reconciliation
- 10. Song for the Innocent
- 11. Falling
- 12. The Perfect Element
