Pain Of Salvation
BE

I am… I am… I am! I wasn't, then I became. I cannot remember not existing, but I must have traveled far, really far to be here.. … I will call myself God and I will spend the rest of eternity trying to extricate my identity.. Is God dead or does He listen and miserably attempt to learn something from the creation’s least perfect being, man?

With these reflections begins a sort of sonic cosmology, a Platonic Timaeus drafted in music; realized by a versatile, complex mind inherently inspired by a melancholic vein. It belongs to the leader of Pain of Salvation, Daniel Gildenlow, a Swedish artist, the sorcerer's apprentice of an uncommon idea of music: the notes, finite in their number, yet compose an indefinite series, and they are characterized not so much by the stupid supermarket emphasis of labelers but above all by the sonic description of all that excites, be it gospel, classical music, folk, jazz, blues, funky or more simply metal progressive.

At first glance, one might think that crossover exhausts this type of music, but it is not so because here it is not about merging multiple genres into one song or in more songs still more or less inspired by the same musical continuity; here we are faced with true genre antinomies within the same album. A cauldron of narrative ideas and musical contents that is BE; a forge of genres able to testify to how polyhedral the human spirit is and how, above all, its emotional satisfaction sometimes demands the concurrence of multiple styles. Forgive me for the seemingly “bizarre” comparison, but I find this idea of music not too different from the one that, in the field of physical contact, led Bruce Lee to create Jet Kune Doo; where individual attack techniques compose a potentially unlimited number, the same way defense cannot be resolved in those little rules learned at martial arts schools. Thus Daniel, with this record, has testified the same concept: the human soul is too eclectic to resolve into an arid sound direction; to appease its infinite shades, instead, it reveals in a determining way the equally unclassifiable whirl of songs.
Indeed, the very word "song" in an album like this seems almost out of place: the vocal and sound registers of this "Be" are straightforwardly disconcerting; the whole band has challenged the artistic limits of any group labeled with a specific genre. The concept inspired by the idea of God projecting His birth and death into the identities individuals, unfolds along the degeneration of man's abnormal growth and his customs. The proliferation of individuals loses the original identity of God and, little by little, His image is swallowed by the lust and opportunism of many useless nothings masquerading as men…

In the story of Be, this “ruler of ruin,” the prototype of the degenerate man, is embodied by Mr. Money; an insignificant magnate of the greed to possess for the sake of possession and a substantial personification of an invisible self-destructive will… A deep-seated nihilism pervades the entire narrative background of the concept; a deeply pessimistic vision, completely confirmed in the music.
And here we introduce the truly “sonic” background of this album: in synthetic terms it is a work of infinite potential where at least ten different genres contribute to the description of the cosmology of Be; a great job, truly great and damn intriguing because with every listening it always sounds with something more than the previous one. . This is what makes an album great; its ability to renew itself over the years and its potentially infinite communicability… It saddens me only to know that Pain of Salvation is not well-known, and it’s a pity because we live in a system where the concept of a work of art often exists to the extent that a diffusion commercial strategy succeeds in getting it into people’s ears… . I remind you that even an album of the caliber of "The Dark Side of The Moon", conquered the world also thanks to a wise as much as astute advertising campaign; Pink Floyd before that time had rarely produced singles (except for little songs like "See Emily Play") and if they hadn’t imported the 45 rpm of "Money" into the USA, I personally do not believe that that album would have had such an explosion of sales immediately (this source is documented in the DVD “Classic Albums: The Dark Side Of The Moon”, told by its own authors and producers).

In terms of experimentation, a record like Be is not inferior to that sacred monster of rock, nor at the level of ideas… but the world is full of misoneists who look askance at the spectrum offered by new minds and, when the lack of commercial streaks is not replaced by a proper advertising campaign, the result is infinitely lower than what that work would deserve…
And a podium of inventiveness belongs to this record for sure: you understand as soon as the player plays the first track (“Anime partus: I am”): a crescendo of entwined voices introduces us to the tenets of God and the world’s story while the progression of the orchestra introduces “God’s new things” (“Deus Nova”); a second track just over two minutes where a prog hint underlies the narrator who tells us (as if it were cold statistics), how much the number of “faces of God” (i.e., people), has exponentially grown over the millennia. Thus the fragmentation of subjectivity is echoed in the transcendental voice of an intro that launches us towards the first true “song” of the album: “Imago (anime partus)” and here the ears are overwhelmed because what whispers from the speakers is a tribal chant that a moment later turns into a magnificent folk ballad. An ideal blend between the Jethro Tull of “Trick as a brick" and the first Branduardi gives us a song that is nothing short of magnificent in its unpredictability.

But the emotions are just at the beginning because a downpour and the onset of a storm introduce the “Pluvius Aestivus”; a minor ballad with just piano and strings of disarming melancholy; it projects the listener's mind into a cold winter morning in the most desolate and intimate of landscapes. Once the storm subsides and genesis occurs, a subtle progressive piece debuts: " Lilium cruentus". A very unique song with gospel and folk traits, although essentially conceived in a background halfway between rock and more refined progressive metal. Following is an acoustic interlude sung in the darkest of manners; a distorted voice accompanied by a bleak acoustic guitar realizes human degeneration and, invoking extreme divine intervention, evokes what could be the soundtrack of a nightmare.

But the tones radically reverse with the most incredible track on the album: “Dea Pecunia”, an absolutely gospel song with blues flourishes tells about Mr. Money and his ambitions; 10 minutes, (played masterfully and interpreted just as penetratingly by Daniel’s voice) that you would never expect from a “metal” group… The incredible thing is that, in some passages, the song evokes the Beatles in their most experimental and unrecognized side (the one that pervades some songs from the White album onwards); the end of this song is a crescendo of Gospel and appended choirs that in their alternativeness vaguely recall the more melodic traits of Guns'N’Roses and Pink Floyd in their hallmark of muted choirs. At this point, anything can happen; indefinite and contradictory images proliferate without any limits, the band changes the sound register continuously and the listener can only be amazed.
The next track (perhaps somewhat cruelly), aims directly at the heart and strikes the listener by communicating how much religious relativism pervades all hearts. "Vocari Dei" is a rather anonymous track in terms of music, because, at first glance, it is nothing more than a litany of acoustic guitar, piano, and violins accompanying dozens and dozens of phone calls from ordinary people; the peculiarity is that these people, each in their own way, have God himself as their interlocutor. Everyone expresses their feelings and approach in the most diverse manners; it goes from the would-be suicide, the enthusiastic mythomaniac, to the atheist who simply does not believe.

After this series of experiments, we land for two proper consecutive songs in the territory of true prog. The first "Diffidentia" is a track with even nu-metal hints, which unfolds between decidedly hard moments and calmer and orchestral phases; the second, instead, "Nihil morari", is a true prog song: with a slow, melancholic guitar, the piece erupts after a bit into the most classic progressive episodes: it is an eclectic piece (sometimes psychedelic) of pure progressive metal, which perhaps in an album like 'Be', I would even dare to call “banal”!!!.
The time of predictability, however, has also lasted too long: indeed, there follow two really intense orchestral interludes (Latericius Valete and Omni), but which eventually dissolve away before the album’s most beautiful track and one of the most poignant in the entire rock scene: "Iter Impius". A song that alone is worth purchasing not one, but ten copies of 'Be'…; almost 7 minutes of a disarmingly intense narrative backdrop that is even more heartrending.
Mr. Money wakes from the possessive stupor in a desolate world, orphaned of life and in the grip of the darkest destruction..

“I woke up today in a world that’ s ground to dust, dirt and stone”... “Life turned its back on us – how could you just agree? How? I just don’t see….)

and realizes that he has been nothing but a “ruler of ruin” all his life. A heartbreaking motif in a poignant and desperate song; a piece capable of uniting fans of Nino D’Angelo and those of Aborted. The album moves toward its end and the last real track (Martius, Nauticus II) resumes, for a change, the crown of the sonic whirl. A grave and orchestral beginning erupts in two minutes of pure tribal sound, to then return to the folk origins of “imago” and close with a rush of wildly played and pounding drums. The epilogue remains or rather, a non-ending; "Anime Partus II", that is nothing but the Nietzschean law of eternal return… though life on earth seems irrevocably ceased, a bare vocal line rematerializes I AM… and with it, the new eternal heart resumes its beats… the question is: where?

In conclusion, a "open" album, intriguing and in terms of innovation, certainly among the greatest of the last 15 years… recommended to all those who love freedom of expression and live music (and maybe even life…) without preventative upholsteries. If you love intense emotions possibly evoked by some patience (the patience to attentively listen to the album with the lyrics in hand), and adore beautiful music without other labels, this is the album for you… .
However, if you live your musical life in the irresistibly comfortable frameworks and sound slogans, leave it be: more than one or two tracks, your cubic mind will not be able to digest…

“For I am every forest, I am every tree, I am everything, I am you and me, I am every ocean, I am every sea, I am all the breathing” “BE” … RATING 10