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Pain Of Salvation
Fantastic Progressive Metal from Sweden. Five piece line up, guitar x2, bass, drums, keyboards. Leader of band Daniel Gildenlow plays guitar and is also their singer.
Entropia (1997)
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| Reviewer: lach (96) |
I was foolishly expecting POS's first album to be a little bit less scary than their following albums. Fortunately it's anything but! Hideously complicated. I can't really stress that enough. There's enough harmonies, melodies, notes, key changes and tempo changes to fill about ten albums by any lesser mortals. I've been listening to this album on and off for the past few months and I still haven't got much further than halfway through the album. There's just so much material here to absorb! I've been putting off writing a review because I didn't want to only half listen to an album. But in the same vein as Dream Theater's "Awake" you could spend a year enjoying this material (well, time will tell). Fortunately Gildenlow is a genius and can make it all work. I'm not sure how it all works, but somehow it does. Perhaps it's the vocals? The virtuoso level of musicianship but with hardly any soloing? The complete lack of musical cliche's? Not sure. A favourite so-far is the funk inspired "People Passing By", and the insaneness of "Stress". If you like the first 4 minutes of this album, you'll dig the rest. (The first 4 seconds were enough for me :) |
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One Hour By The Concrete Lake (1998)
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| Reviewer: lach (96) |
Following on from their debut "Entropia", POS's second album is a bit more focused, with a bit less stylistic deviation and more concentrated songwriting. Gildenlow's voice is fantastic, possibly one of the best in metal. So what can I say about this album? Well for a start it has a lot less of the quick-changes-to-another-style to which their first album has so much of, and to me it's a bit of a refreshing change. There's also no funk inspired material, something which is a little bit of a disappointment. Track 3 "The Big Machine" has a loosely soundgarden-esque slow downtuned feel to it, something which is a bit different for POS. However by the next song the pace has been picked up and it's rocking again. "New Year's Eve" features a great odd-timing riff that really kicks butt. Great for air guitaring and confusing people when the beat skips! The band makes great use of this one riff played in numerous styles (bass solo, band in harmony, acoustic guitar, etc). Great song. "Handful Of Nothing" continues POS's tradition of inventing a new style that incorporates to well into their music. It almost has a drum'n'bass feel due to its fast, complicated syncopated drum beat, with a layer on synth pads over the top. Really nice. "Water" is another brilliant work by POS set in a Vai esque lydian theme. Gildenlow's vocals once again completely shine. As much as I'd like to give another track by track analysis of this album, I won't, and I'll stop here and just say that it's another POS work of art. |
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The Perfect Element (2000)
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| Reviewer: lach (96) |
Gildenlow has a fantastic voice, and is an amazing song-writer. These songs are long, complicated, intertwining, and have lots and lots (and lots) of different parts. This album is fantastic. The music is quite dark, melancholic and heartfelt. Which is great, however by track 10 it all gets a bit depressing. I think that this is quite a personal thing, because some people seem to really like it. But for me, it all just gets a bit too much, and I want to go a listen to something a bit faster and more rocking. So the album is great, and if you don't mind a bit of gloom every now and then I really do recommend that you check it out. You can't be dissapointed. However, it's great to see that Gildenlow has a great sense of humour. In a recent interview: What are some of the goals of Pain of Salvation, musically, professionally, etc.? To drive the unworthy hordes of filthy human creatures in front of us and punish them relentlessly for their ignorance with our rightful swords of blazing steel and leather whips carved out of live cattle, in order to prevent them from breeding and thus, with their detestable inbred descendants reeking of sloth and stupidity, soil this earth that justly belongs to us! Sorry, I'm just having this fling with power metal... Did I forget to mention the dark pits of angst and fire? It would be nice if some of this lightheartedness came through in his music. |
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Remedy Lane (2002)
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| Reviewer: lach (96) |
If you'd have played these two albums side by side, I never would have guessed that it was two different distinct albums. This isn't much of a problem however, and it's great to see that POS can continue writing such high-class material. One thing that I found very interesting about this CD is that when I was recently listening to the album in my car, I found that my favourite part of the whole CD was the instrumental bit in the track "Rope Ends". And reading in the linear notes it says: "All music by Daniel Gildenlow, except instrumental part of Rope Ends" Howzthat for a pick? Maybe if Daniel let the other guys bring in their influence a bit more the music might be a little bit more happier. "Rope Ends" is still a fantastic track though. The keyboard track "Remedy Lane" is really nice. Good to have something break up the album - plus the intro of the next track "Waking Every God" has some killer slap bass. More! Anyway, the songwriting is still very good. Great CD. |
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