The Perfect Element I

Pain Of Salvation takes further steps in their conceptual sequences with their third record. While not necessarily as simple and in your face aggrseeive like their previous two records, The Perfect Element delivers high on emotional captivity of the concept, a thing that makes progressive concept albums a worth listen. The music is a cross between Metropolis era Dream Theater with the extended musical pieces and technical wankery chunked out. While this may be a love-hate thing as Dream Theater know perfectly how to handle their instrumental sections, and Pain Of Salvation does not. This many a times makes this album seem overlong and tiresome and it takes quite a number of careful listens to fully grasp this album.

Where earlier in the review I stated that this album does not quite deliver technically, this certainly does not mean that these guys do not handle their instruments well. The guitar and keyboard work is fabulous and emotionally captivating. Every little instrumental part that has been played is composed brilliantly and played with tremendous passion by the musicians. Where at first or the subsequent listen the music may seem to be simple enough, but more listens reveal a deep and tremendously thought out effort. The vocals are an aquired taste as Pain Of Salvation employ three vocalist to bring a certain emotional depth to the music. Where they do get their results good most of the times, but there still are those times when the songs seem incoherent and also makes the music hard to digest. The production is not very heavy or guitar oriented but handled perfectly as it is resposible for much of the emotional captivity of the album.

Like I mentioned earlier, the music is not composed with the intention of making it enjoyable and sipping a couple of beers as your headbang your way through it. This music is something you can relate to and feel the emtions expressed through the lyrics. I know this sounds sissy and heavy metal is not supposed to be sissy. But do not imagine love ballads either. This album is actually quite dark and at times very depressing. Every song represents a theme or an element as the musicians put it, representing the development of two people from childhood to adolescence. Another good thing about this album is the high level of consistency. The album is captivating from the first song to its last almost equally and flows together like a symphony. On the negative side, this album is very hard to digest. Where some of the songs like Ashes or the title track have good choruses, but the songs are extremely complex otherwise. The three vocalists are not always used to their potential and many a times the vocal melodies are not up to the mark.

Though it may be hard to digest and needs many listens to fully grasp the music, this album will be widely appreciated amongst the fans of progressive music. It will be a good listen for people who listen to other genres of music like soft rock or pop, once in a while. This album is not recomended for those who like their music to be heavy and in-your-face for it is the very polarising opposite of their interests.

This is simply the best, most versatile and complete package of songs in an album, and in that, a very challenging album to digest. I’ve always been a great fan of the band. I've listened carefully to every Pain of Salvation’s album, and until "Be", this was the only one that I didn’t become a big fan within a short period of listening, mainly due to the fact that this is a very difficult album to understand. It has got an intricate technique, very strong and touching lyrics and very efficient melodies when it comes to feelings. The album can be described by the term "obscure art." Well, everything is just perfect here. The music seems very simple, but all the musicians, when analyzed separately, prove themselves to be very creative, technically skilled and qualified, especially while considering the small details, and of course, watching all the arrangements, focusing on creativity. The vocals are absolutely perfect, without any objection. Bass lines have a very free style, improvising all the time and are even capable of having their own melodies separately from the main melody of the song. On several songs a fretless-bass can be noticed. Langell has got his snare drum sharper than the previous albums, and with less effect. It worked very well, once it is clear and loud enough. Langell has got even more impressive when you check his creativity closer, with great grooves and lots of odd-time-signatures and different patterns, working around in 6/8 and 7/8 and sometimes even as odd as 9/16 and 15/16. Guitars and keyboards are the highlight here. Voice arrangements are perfectly clear, very heavy and flat, with little effect. Improvisations and arrangements are constant and quite creative. The solos are genially composed and the keyboard suits the general ambience created by the whole album. This album definitely has to be analyzed on each song, minute by minute, detail by detail, and I got a suggestion for you, reader. Go through this review listening the album at the same time.

"Used" pervades the album, instantly frightening you. How can a progressive metal band compose a song with three different notes and make technical and intricate music out of it? The song starts in a very strange and different style comparing to the Pain of Salvation we knew so far at that time, but soon it becomes very friendly and catchy again. The “Used” solo is one of Daniel Gildenlöw’s best solos throughout this album and right after the solo the song takes an unexpected course, presenting an amazing vocal exhibition, showcasing Gildenlöw’s outstanding vocal range. Beginning with a wave with low pitched vocals, turning to median, then high pitched, and the final climax at 4:21 until 4:35! With the second song, "In The Flesh", very touching lyrics are offered in a regular melody, initially calm and smooth. As most of the songs on this album, it goes through several different stages. This one starts slow, and boosts up pace. At 4:09, we listen to one of the most creative parts of the album, with two overlapping vocals and incredible guitar and bass arrangements. For the first time in the album, we can observe the use of a fretless bass, most notably from 4:50 beyond, onwards to a great 7/8 groove. At this point, something amazing happens in the ambience of the song. It gradually turns from a smooth, flowing pattern into heavy riffs completely full of tension. "Ashes" comes off as the simple song in the album; it provides a sense of versatility and completeness to the album, when seen as a whole. "Morning On Earth" begins with a melody that seems to be played on a piano by the protagonist of the song, showing his anger and hate, as he strikes every key. The guitars are beautiful as the song reaches its half, as well as the chorus.

We arrive at the second part of the album, with “Idioglossia.” Endowed with some of the best lyrics Daniel has ever written, the music goes through several instrumentals stages. Each one seems to unleash a different kind of emotion and feeling, usually involving hatred, despair, anger, disappointment and vengeance. "I scratched the surface and see, someone better than me," “As I search through the ashes, for someone to blame, I'm afraid to see my face", "As I walk through the ashes, I whisper your name, meeting you forced me to meet myself", "... for your stupidity, for stealing what could have been… …ME!" These are the highlight excerpts in the lyrics of this song, This is a big song completely full of different patterns, and I must mention that the ending of this song is outrageous! "Her Voices" begins, again with the usual music stages. It begins a very soft and melodic pattern, with a very slow and heavy chorus with great bass, keyboard, and guitar arrangements, the song has its climax at 4:20 onwards, with an extremely creative instrumental, involving a fast and long solo. We even have violins here! The song ends as smoothly as it begins. "Dedication" is a perfect example of what a ballad should be. Slow music, acoustic, almost romantic, and excellent lyrics, presented with beautiful melodies and great vocal lines. The time varies rhythmically in grooves on 6/7, 7/8 and even 15/16, which you may observe at 3:14.

The other song that caught my attention on the album, along with "Idioglossia," was "King of Loss." It is a well of creativity, heaviness, melody and emotions. It starts off smoothly, creating an ambience of tension and suspense. It is worth noting the guitar arrangements that may be heard working in the background with the vocals. The music continues to feed a heavier suspense with every running second. At 2:06, a choir sings along with Daniel, humming crooked frightening melodies until Daniel sings "I am the king of loss!", then the music starts to get heavy, and as soon as we reach the chorus part, the spirit and the atmosphere get really tense, with very heavy guitar patterns, and a droning note on the keyboards. Then, at 5:55, the music begins to move to a different stage, where vocal improvisation is the highlight. Soon after the chorus, the music begins to reach what could be considered the best part of the entire album. At 6:40 all of the instruments will have your skin crawl with violins, leading up to one of the best solos on the record. And as it seems the song is finally over, it suddenly rises again, striking you with a frightening and desperate ending. Definitely, a gem of a song!

“Reconciliation” kicks in running at mid-tempo, with yet another great melody. It shows all it wants to send to the listener: sadness, nostalgia, anger and sometimes even joy, in a strange way. The solo is really creative, following different patterns inside the song itself. At 3:40 Daniel shows again the power of his voice, going high pitch from mid range voice. “Song For The Innocent” is a very calm song, in that it is very different from the other songs from the album. This makes it a great backdrop for the fretless bass to stand out. It’s a short song, but it darkens the ambience at 1:27 and hits your ears with probably the greatest solo of the record. It resembles “Comfortably Numb” from Pink Floyd. As it seems, this is the most guitar oriented part of the album, since the next song is basically a big guitar solo with a smooth tone, very emotional and slow. It comes as an intro, a preparation of the song that gives its name to the album: “The Perfect Element”. This last song contains one more beautiful melody, which walks along until the end of the song. An epic song, I must add. “And I set myself on fire.” “In his head a thunderous cry of desperation.” “If you take from the ones you fear, everything they value, you have bred the perfect beast, drained enough to kill you.” “Falling far beyond the point of no return, nothing to become and nothing left to burn.” Simply stated, the song has some of the best lyrics on the album, accompanied by one of the greatest instrumental backgrounds of the record. At 3:33, one can just picture how chaotic the instrumental is. And exactly one minute later, we see beauty of classic acoustic guitars, soft vocals and a background chorus. Voices keep moving higher and higher until the song reaches its climax, with a great pattern involving drums, guitars, keys and bass. At 6:33 the smooth part comes in, up until 7:40. “Will I ever walk again?” leads us to the end of this perfect element of an album. It ends with an interesting pattern, also used later on the album “Be”. The drums step ahead and begin to up their sound until the loud end.

All in all, we can tell that this is the most elaborated and skilled work from Pain of Salvation. It took me a couple of years to understand the album and love it as it should be loved, so, I advise you not to judge this album as you listen for the first time, or after a couple of months. It requires one to spend time with it to fully realize that it’s a great album, a masterpiece: an unparalleled gem of art.

One cannot write a review for a POS album without referring to their greatest work, Remedy Lane, but I shall try to avoid comparison.

The Perfect Element Part I is by all accounts a very good progressive metal piece of work. There is a variety of musical styles on the album, ranging throughout. They go from the more aggresive style, to the weird psychedelia that any POS fan will come to expect on any of their albums. The first song, "Used" is a fine example of this, with heavy choruses mixed with lighter instrumentals which include piano backing.

Another element that works very well, and adds to the progressive style is the continuous musical theme that runs throughout. For example, the eerily haunting and somewhat scary song, "Ashes" has a downtuned chorus that re-appears in later tracks, such as "Idioglossia" and this concept is repeated in other melodies, lyrics and so on in the entire album.

These are just some of the reasons that POS are such a fantastic band. They play great music, but aren't afraid to step out and try new stuff. There is much evidence of this in The Perfect Element, and I personally think it truly pays off in a fantastic album.

But now, reader, I'm afraid I have to mention Remedy Lane. You see despite the excellent musicianship and Daniel Gildelow's wonderfully husky vocals, The Perfect Element just doesn't have that gloriously epic feel that Remedy Lane does. The tracks on The Perfect Element are very well crafted, as I have already mentioned, and, again as I mentioned, they flow quite well with a great continuity. But for some reason, they just don't flow as well as they do on Remedy Lane. I find myself listening to the album, and really liking it, but it just doesn't quite grip me all the way to the end.

But that is the nature of progressive music. Remedy Lane came after this one, so they must have done some tweaking of the style and it paid off. The point is that with The Perfect Element, POS have created a wonderful masterpiece that is a joy to listen to if you are truly progressively minded.

To me, a humble fan of doom and drone, Prog Metal is a strange, strange beast. I enjoy a li'l bit of Dream Theatre, Rush and Spiral Architect here and there, but for the most part this genre just confuses me. I guess the solos are just too shreddy for me or something, and despite liking plenty of long drone tunes I just find prog's attempts at epics.. well, really boring. Still, when prog metal manages to balance the wank with some decent riffing, it's great- the wank is highlighted and made all the more spectacular, while the big rock out sections are all the more rocky-outy. Yep, prog metal done right can be pretty excellent stuff.

..Unfortunately, this is not prog metal done right. This is prog metal with all of it's balls removed, and instead of some enjoyable wanky metal stuff we get possibly a collection of riffless, flaccid semi-ballads played by some skilled musicians.

It's interesting to see people on here actually like the first song, as well. I'm not really sure how anyone could like this pseudo nu-metal stuff. Hell, it's not even good for nu metal. A riffless wonder with some terribly rapped lyrics, which breaks out into an equally terrible clean chorus. Pretty awful stuff.

..And the rest of this album isn't particularly great. For the most part, we're looking at cheesy, piano driven ballads with some limp, ineffectual distorted guitars here and there. The guitars do occasionally give us a good bit of technical wizardry (Her Voices being a pretty good tech workout), but with the possible exception of the final song it's the usual 'backing chords' kind of guitar style, that's used in most pop metal bands like NIghtwish and what not. Seriously, I'd be hard pressed to think of any good riffs in this entire album. The rest of the band don't really achieve anything either- the synth player obviously knows his stuff, but he rarely contributes anything useful to the songs. Perhaps it's just me, but the only useful instrument contributor here is the drummer, who's always holding down the beat perfectly but also manages some pretty sweet lines- the ending of the title track is a rather sweet tribal beat that Neurosis would be proud off, and he always supporting the guitars and vocals in a really great, unobtrusive way- his work in 'Her Voices' and 'Reconciliation' are both really excellent.

So, for the most part the instruments fail. But we haven't gotten to the worst part yet. The vocals are possibly the worst kind of cheese- how anyone can call this guy 'emotional' is beyond me. I think 'wailing' is a better word. Yep, this guys vocals are very wailing. His voice isn't terrible, but it's still quite weak and pretty sub standard in general. This isn't normally a big issue in prog- the main focus is on technicality and the instrumentation- but this guy props up a lot in these songs, and he never fails to be really annoying. Whether it's the weak, soppy vocals of 'Dedication', or the terrible rap/rant of 'Used', he never fails to be extremely annoying.

That's not to say everything about this album is bad (though most of this album is pretty terrible!). 'Her Voices' is undoubtedly the high point, with a very nifty tech workout, a pretty rousing chorus and a really slower chorus near the end. Ashes is quite an epic li'l tune, with a nice and depressing feel and a proper guitar riff buried underneath all of the synths and vocals. However, these are were the good parts end- everything else is cloying, pretentious prog metal with no real guitar riffs and just a huge amount of estrogen, some incredibly annoying vocals and no real sense of progression.

So to conclude: Do not get this! Admittedly, I'm not exactly a prog metal expert, so perhaps there's something I'm missing. Regardless, I think this sucks, and since my opinion is infallible, clearly prog metal fans just don't like good music. Avoid at all costs!

Last Christmas, my family decided to circulate a sort of wish list around to everybody via email on the premise that it's far easier to figure out what you want as opposed to what ten other people want. However, I was in a peculiar location at the time where I'd have been unable to store just about anything that anybody might have sent me, so I was ready to spare my family the trouble altogether. Then, I got to thinking about how excellent an opportunity this could be to trick my closest and most beloved people on the planet into listening to some music of my choosing.

You see, I would love to share much of the music that I listen to with as many other people as I can. Unfortunately, the type of person who will tolerate what I listen to in any sincere fashion is a very rare find. This makes me sad - not because I think everybody should listen to what I listen to, but because it pains me to see one of the wonders of the world fall away into relative obscurity, leaving only a diluted shell of itself for people to listen to and say, "This would make good background noise for (insert activity here)".

I should say that nobody in my family outside of myself considers music to be a very significant part of their lives... so why did I ask a bunch of people to listen to a bunch of music that they probably wouldn't even enjoy? Well, my purpose wasn't to make any of them like it, but something very different.

So, of all the bands I could have employed in my evil scheme - why Pain of Salvation? This band, and more specifically this album, means a lot to me. It also means a lot to me to have people so close to me experience something that I personally hold so dear. And so, here we are.

This Swedish group is home to Daniel Gildenlow - lyricist, vocalist, and primary songwriter. This man is possibly my most revered in all of music. Every album this band has released is a concept album - a concept album is an album which is unified from start to finish by a single theme or pre-conceived story, with this theme or story being the "concept". While Pain of Salvation is certainly not the only band out there to write concept albums, they certainly do write some of the more staggering ones, thanks to Daniel. From what I understand, he has always been very interested in the dirty underbelly of politics, social injustice, environmental devastation, and many other wrong doings that are going on around the world... and he has an uncanny ability to take these concepts, craft an interesting conceptual framework around them, build the world around that framework, arrange the musical journey through that world, and deliver it all with unmatched integrity, complexity, intelligence, and passion. To this day, they have written five such albums, with themes ranging between the individual, society, war, environment, existence, humanity, et al.

On their third, The Perfect Element I, Daniel follows the lives of a boy and a girl in the streets of a fictional place known as Idioglossia. Both the boy and girl are growing up with something missing in their lives, and the way they choose to fill these empty spaces is quite a self-destructive and jarring journey through the most depraved recesses of society. However, the album isn't just a depressing story about two lost children... it covers many themes, including: childhood, adolescence, violence, sexuality, tragedy and loss, relationships between the individual and his society, states of the human mind and soul, and the exploration of emotional extremes (including love, pain, anger, shame, regret...), among other things. In Daniel's own words, this is a story about two people fighting against the wounds inflicted upon them by their past, about love as a path to reconciliation, and about a society that introduces various "malfunctions" into a few people and then fights to exclude them as they become dangers to this same society. Daniel has been exploring people in the backside of society ever since their first album, Entropia, but all of that and more is approached far more boldly here. The story is split up into three chapters - "As These Two Desolate Worlds Collide", "It All Catches Up On You When You Slow Down", and "Far Beyond the Point of No Return" - with each chapter consisting of four tracks.

Of course, fancy shmancy concepts are nothing without an appropriate presentation. Fortunately, Daniel's vocal delivery is filled with a sense of raw emotion, power, and honesty that I have not heard from any other. Not only is he very intelligent and a wonderful lyricist, but he is also a brilliant vocalist. His voice is extremely dynamic (and sometimes admittedly over-dramatic), ranging from the deepest and darkest intonations to Broadway-worthy soaring. He has stated in many interviews that he believes progressive metal to be a fairly stale thing when it comes to vocals, what with guys constantly hanging around the upper registers and worrying more about over-extended histrionics than relaying any kind of emotion... and so he tries to avoid this very real trend. The results are often fascinating. He is also very passionate and thus it is easy to empathize with what he is saying. In fact, I get the sense that the entire band greatly desires the listener to empathize with the events that are being portrayed by the lyrics and to really feel what Daniel is feeling as he sings. They truly want you to understand the messages that they are trying to get across with their music.

That brings me to something very important - the impact that this album, or really any Pain of Salvation album, has on the listener is multiplied ten-fold if the listener knows what is being said. Listening to Daniel sing with soothing elegance over a tranquil piano line is one thing, listening to his brooding voice in pain and agony on top of a turbulent musical collage is another... but when you add the last piece of the puzzle (that being the lyrics), everything becomes so much more powerful. It's like suddenly all the disjointed musical discordance and theatrical vocal performances fall into perfect context. For this reason, it's imperative that you find a way to follow the words... either read them beforehand, read them while listening (which might detract from the listening part), or listen once, read, and then listen again... or something. It also should be noted that, since these guys are Swedish, there's the occasional grammatical inconsistency. However, all in all, it's hard to tell that Daniel even has an accent, and whatever errors there may be in the writing do not detract from the cohesion in the slightest - and it also makes you think, or at least it makes me think, what Daniel could have done with all this stuff if English was his native language.

The question you're probably asking now is what's going on here musically? Well, I could throw out some idioms typical of progressive metal - equal parts driving metal, acoustic passages, epic arrangements, cinema-scopic buildups, rhythmic complexity, so on and so forth. While those statements may describe what's going on here on a superficial level, they don't really capture the essence of the thing. Also, there's little to no instrumental over-indulgence to be found here. The guys can play with the best of them, but all displays of technical proficiency which are found on this album are infused into the arrangements, which are built entirely to serve the concept. In that aspect alone, they are unique among their peers.

"Used" kicks off with splashes of metallic chords on top of a driving drum pattern, before dropping off into a pulsing rhythm with Daniel ranting in a dark and hoarse whisper - "I am the unclean - the black drop at the bottom of your cup - you'd better drink or throw me up 'cause I'm on your lip and tongue - God! - I'm not yours as much as you are mine - so let me in to be your lung - just breathe me deep and take another sip - so still - a taste so sweet but so bitter the kill! - still on your lip, you are so close - I'll let you come between my legs, you are closer death than sun - and I'm not your daughter as much as you're my son - I'll let you come - in my mouth, on your lip - so ready and thirsty for the next sip - you let me in, I let you come - I'd never let you down - you let me win, I'll let you drown!" The last is delivered with a powerful roar as various vocal lines coalesce on top of each other, and then the darkness gives way to make room for an uplifting passage that's in striking opposition to what came only moments before - and to what will come only moments after. Later down the line, the song is broken by an almost bluesy guitar solo, and proceeds to build momentum and tension before exploding into a powerful storm of unbridled emotion.

In fear of falling into a track-by-track description that I was originally intending to avoid, I'll just say that there aren't really any formulas in use here, but if I had to depict a kind of connecting musical theme from song to song, it would be that epic buildup of tension and consequent cathartic release in the form of an emotional storm that, if nothing else, is often tear jerking. The Perfect Element I is an album driven by emotion and dynamics on a level beyond any other album I have ever heard in this genre.

I do have to say a few things about several of the tracks here, though -

"In the Flesh" is a huge teaser. A repetitive and pleasant arrangement of clean guitars and soft drums throughout the first few minutes of this song do a good job of putting you in the "mood", so to speak. When the band finally does come through in force, though, the wait will have been more than worth it. Very powerful music over the last several minutes, with Daniel's massively moving two-sided narration of an encounter between two characters that's guaranteed to leave a lasting impression. The transition into the next song is masterful, with a touching piano and acoustic guitar arrangement.

"Idioglossia" IS progressive metal. This is what it's all about. The song goes through so many movements, so many changes, and makes such excellent use of dynamics. The drum work especially throughout all eight and a half minutes of this song is so enveloping. The true beauty of this song, though, is the way it works with the agony that Daniel attempts to portray within his characters. You can feel what Daniel is saying through the music that his band mates are playing. The music conveys the emotions being expressed with such utter brilliance that one almost gets the impression that this music wasn't actually arranged, but that it simply came to be in a free-flowing musical arena where each member's ideas seamlessly intertwined with the rest to create this most natural and turbulent collage. The pathos of it all is unreal.

"Her Voices", or more specifically the latter half of the song, features a long instrumental passage with some very interesting drumming, folky guitar melodies, and a truly epic closing sequence filled with violins, soaring pianos, dense guitars, layered background vocals that reach for the sky, and Daniel singing on top of it all with that emphatic voice of his. Powerful, indeed.

"Reconciliation". I really only have one thing to point out about this song - and that's the thing that Daniel does from 3:35 to around 3:48. Holy crap. That shouldn't be possible.

"The Perfect Element". This is it. The title track and also the album closer. Right from the beginning the melodies deliver a sort of somber tranquility... quiet and retrospective, yet sad and desolate. Around mid-way through the song, the band drops out to leave a single acoustic guitar playing through several arpeggiated chords. A second guitar joins in shortly, overlaying a sorrow-filled but strangely uplifting melody before both guitars are joined by the remainder of the band, with a violin adding to the atmosphere. Daniel is at his emotional peak here, and it is unbelievable. With every word he sings, it's as if he's feeling what his characters are feeling. You can almost see the tears falling from his eyes as his voice builds and builds - "Once he had forests and mountains that were only his, listening to him - Once he would run through the summer days, catching memories for ages to come - Now he is dressing this naked floor - with his flesh and blood - while time passes by - His trade of pain might just have lead him to deal with consequence - for some change as time passes by!" His voice strains here as he holds the word, on the verge of breaking, and it's perfect. So perfect that when he finally does release it, you realize that you never even noticed the band that had long since come in behind him. A brief, yet striking and monumental instrumental passage ensues, and then the guys drop into a dense yet somewhat airy wall of sound that leads into the closing passage, which consists of an interesting, tribal drum progression that fades into the wind with an inquisitive Daniel angrily chanting "Is this more than you want?".

The end.

As far as I'm concerned, this album has only one fault - and that's the production. Due to the nature of the music here and its tendency to build and climax into dense of walls of sound, instrument separation should have been a very important concern. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a significant oversight. When the band starts layering instruments, everything tends to turn into a mash of guitars and cymbals, making it a bit hard to distinguish guitars from other guitars, guitars from keyboards, individual notes and chords, and other such nuances. When the band starts layering vocals, it gets even worse. This is most blatantly displayed on "Her Voices", towards the end, where you can't really understand what either Daniel or the background vocalists are singing because it all turns into one big blob of sound. The production is flawed, but it isn't "horrible"... for the most part things are pretty clear, intelligible, and well defined. It's only when the band is at their most dense that the imperfections shine through.

In retrospect, never in my life could I have imagined that the distinction of my "favorite" album would have been so easy to make, but here it is. The Perfect Element I.

The perfect album.

Bring on Part II.

The predecessor to the brilliant and controversial Remedy Lane continues Pain of Salvation's trend of emotionally-charged, no-frills progressive metal straight from the deepest pit of the narrator's heart and soul. Daniel Gildenlow and co. try to squeeze out every possible inch of emotion from each vocal nuance and piano and guitar lines and it seems as if they greatly desire the listener to empathize with the lyrics of the songs and feel emotions as deeply as Gildenlow.

If anyone hasn't noticed, Daniel Gildenlow(btw, the bassist Kristoffer Gildenlow is Daniel's brother) is the star attraction of this little prog outfit from Eskilstuna, Sweden. From my understanding, due to PoS's seemingly purposeful minimalist approach to riffing and soloing, the band derives much of their power and drive from Gildenlow's skills as a vocalist. Everyone should hear his voice. It's so incredibly rich and much like the audio equivalent of Tiramisu or strawberry short cake. His range is incredible as well, going from a low moan to a high shriek at the drop of a hat. I'm proud of myself for being able to sing like him somewhat. It is this versatility which drives many of the songs.

You see, he basically establishes the tone of the music usually and the rest of the band accompanies him to supplement the mood. Many of the riffs are based around his voice. They rarely, if ever, have a mind of their own and morph into unintelligible, incoherent blobs of sound. This approach is to be much appreciated in prog metal, for Pain of Salvation has the power to keep the listener firmly entrenched in the plot of the song and to actually FEEL it, yet they are not very technically impressive. This is a norm which I don't mind being violated because it works very well.

Something that does, in fact, bother me about Gildenlow's vocals, however, is the fact that they often sound plagued with indecision. It's as if he can't decide which notes would sound the most euphonious following certain other notes and it ends up creating an almost discordant rising and falling effect of the vocals. Also, because I love to sing along to music, I expect to be able to comfortably sing something without having to do a calculus problem.

I can forgive this wishy-washiness, however, because Gildenlow is a talented vocalist and he likes to keep things NOT simple and show off. That's understandable. The most blatant example of what I'm referring to is on the underrated tune King of Loss. Don't ask me why Pain of Salvation or whomever decided to put "Kingdom of Loss" as the banner on their official site.Why indirectly bestow such great honor to such an inferior song? Musically, it's not that bad, but the chorus is one of the most annoying known to man.

I've made the point that Pain of Salvation isn't very riff-oriented, and I'm sure this holds true on their first two albums as well, but there ARE some good riffs for crying out loud! Without any notable playing skills, the band just wouldn't be prog, am I right? The most blatant example of this is the song Idioglossia, which is actually the name of some fictional place. The inspiration of it I do not remember or know, but there is quite a lot of good keyboards and riffs to be found here.

PoS exhibits more of their Faith No More vocal influences on this record. It's been said before that Pain of Salvation mixes the prog rock tendencies of bands like Yes and King Crimson with the heavy riffing and attitude of bands like Faith No More and Metallica, and on the opening track Used, it is quite apparent. I'm not sure what you'd call Gildenlow's singing style on it, but I supposed it could be best described as a rapping/ranting hybrid that suddenly morphs into an uplifting chorus.

I love the cover art of this album for a few different reasons. First of all, the color scheme is very congruous with that of Remedy Lane, utilizing many warm browns, and creamy and tannish tones. When looking at this album situated just above Remedy Lane in my CD carrying case, it looks very pretty and it's perhaps symbolic of what Pain of Salvation is all about lyrically. PoS tears new paths in those respects because they are heavily focused on exploring the idyllic times of childhood and the turbulent adolescent years, and helping listeners to see the lasting impressions those times have on people throughout their lifetimes.

Much of the lyrical inspiration behind this album is from band members' personal problems, but the members expect the listeners to look at each song's lyrics from their own perspectives and apply them to their lives. Although the lyrics are cryptic 90% of the time, there is no trace of fiction in them. PoS sings about life, and that's part of what makes them so appealing.

The color scheme of the two aforementioned albums is symbolic of the band's exploration of their(and our) roots of existence, and being able to feel comfortable with ourselves in front of nature and God. Much kudos has to go to Erik and Klara Iggsten as well for being the cover siblings of this album. They are both adorable and perfectly convey the concept of the album.

Overall, this is an excellent album, occasionally plagued by poor songwriting and seemingly fine traces of superficiality. Sometimes there is so much emotion in the songs that it seems forced, but otherwise everything is excellent.