Pain of Salvation
In the Passing Light of Day

Pain of Salvation released some of the most memorable albums of the new millennium over 15 years ago (and, in the opinion of the writer, in universal history). The Perfect Element Part I and Remedy Lane are a godsend for anyone with hearing, for one reason or another: a perfect blend of emotion, technique, poetry and more. Fans began to diverge with Be, a more experimental album with a simply avant-garde concept...but especially with the following Scarsick, which was notably different from their original sound, focusing on rap, alternative, and even disco elements (though, again in the writer's opinion, it is at least half an excellent album). Then came the vintage hard rock diversion with the two Road Salt, which allowed the Swedes to regain the trust of some fans and lose others definitively.

In 2017, six years after Road Salt Two, we could expect anything but a return to the heavy and technical sound of their golden years. Naturally, it's not a sterile rehash: due in part to the completely different lineup from that time—except for the divine Daniel Gildenlöw, the mind of the group always present—and the mixing, the concept of heaviness takes on an entirely different color from the band's classics. Daniel Bergstrand (already behind the mixer for some of the most intense bands of the North) gives the album's intricate rhythms a penetrating power that at times seems almost to verge on djent, with powerful seven-string guitars used for much of the time. On bass, we have (not by chance, one might say) Gustaf Hielm, who played in the early Pain of Salvation and later joined Meshuggah for several years. The last familiar element of the lineup is the French Léo Margarit on drums, whose flair is expressed in this album perhaps more than the two Road Salt allowed him to do, when he was a newcomer. In this instance, the latter role is covered by Daniel Karlsson on keyboards and Ragnar Zolberg on guitar, the latter often (though not as much as many of the "hardcore" fans feared) also handling vocals. The performances of each member mentioned in this paragraph are excellent. Certainly, the style is different from the past: closer to the old glories, yet (fortunately for those who always love a band’s evolution) not reducible to it. The hallucinatory high notes and extended instrumental sections disappear, vocal harmonies are scaled down, but Daniel's more biting side (almost growling at some points) returns, his aggressive rap, frequent polyrhythms, spoken passages, and so on. Compared to recent releases, the vintage vein almost entirely disappears, the voice is much more natural, the songwriting more extensive and unstructured, the sounds more direct and aggressive, and the songs tend to be darker and more personal, hardly ever light and carefree, yet never weighed down by excessive pathos. And the interesting thing is that each absence compared to the past becomes evident only after a process of rationalization afterward: in other words, at the moment of listening, nothing seems like it could be better; everything is in its place, we are facing the purest Pain of Salvation.

In the Passing Light of Day narrates the experience of singer/guitarist/etc. Daniel Gildenlöw, who nearly died from a severe flesh-eating bacteria infection known as "necrotizing fasciitis" (search Google Images for very clear visual explanations). It is needless to attempt to explain how such a misfortune could affect a man, especially a sensitive personality like Daniel, who has repeatedly demonstrated great ability in aestheticizing his personal experiences (much of Remedy Lane is autobiographical). The result is an album thematically distressing and lyrically touching at the highest levels: another example of how personal experiences can be elevated to something capable of attaining universality. However, it is not a monolithic or flat journey musically or lyrically; quite the contrary: the tracks are absolutely mutable in style and sound. From the explosive Reasons to the delicate sixties ballad Silent Gold (the only true remnant of the vintage vein of recent releases), from the varied title track to the indefinable If This Is The End. However, the first half of the album is more direct, while the second reaches the peaks of pathos for obvious conceptual reasons and tends to be a more intimate and suffering journey. But it is all held together in an absolutely convincing way, with the right balance of tension and relaxation in the tracklist. Consequently, if the intricate opener On a Tuesday will fully satisfy fans of the "progressive metal" label, more or less unjustly attached to the band for ages, the intriguing The Taming of a Beast will win over new fans, and the lively Full Throttle Tribe will satisfy those who were lost after abandoning the more technical approach. In short, there is something for everyone, and more importantly, in every case, it's music that accounts for a band now completely mature, but not therefore spoiled, aware, but not therefore reckless, capable of questioning itself and rediscovering a part of itself that had been forgotten, reinterpreting it in light of the new lineup, new experiences, and new times. A group that reaffirms not being repetitive, always abreast of the times, yet also always beyond time itself, like the medieval philosophers' Creator God. Few bands have managed to create something similar 20 years after their debut album. And that "few" is just there not to seem arrogant.

Rating: 9.5 = *****