Pain Of Salvation
Remedy Lane

After the previous masterpiece, 'The Perfect Element, Part I', the Swedish band does not disappoint its fans by producing another top-tier album like 'Remedy Lane'. Whether it's better than the previous one, worse, or even the best of their career I leave to the personal tastes of the listener. What is certain is that it's a complex album, both in music and lyrics, born from a well-thought-out concept that takes the listener on a journey along the "remedy lane", which in the Anglo-Saxon language means taking a journey along the timeline of one's memories. Indeed, this album talks about how man seeks the meaning of the word freedom and how he relates to people of the opposite sex. And everything that ensues: the birth of love, happily facing life together with one's partner, sex, but also loss, separation, the death of a child. How do these events change our worldview, our conception of freedom, and the way we interact with others? All of this by retracing episodes from the past that affect present behaviors. According to the leader (and creator of all the concepts) of the group, Daniel Gildenlöw, this concept is the most personal and autobiographical he has ever written. It indeed deals with topics and episodes he experienced firsthand, skillfully immersed in other invented facts. To help the listener understand the path followed in the album, Daniel creates an exceptional album artwork, where he adds images, dates, and places to the song lyrics, as well as personal poems.

But let's move on to the track descriptions:

1. Of Two Beginnings
   We are in Hungary, Budapest. Hotel room. A man in crisis tries to discover what freedom is: he has the usual phrases, the answers he's heard, in his head, but he wants to feel it on his own skin and experience what it is. Additionally, we have the first memory, the first approach to sex and love of a child. The beginning is very soft, guitars and drums build up, then culminating in intriguing keyboards that, alongside the distorted guitars, accompany Daniel's powerful voice. Beautiful as always are the intertwined vocal lines.
2. Ending Themes
   The previous song immediately takes us to Ending Themes, which opens with the motif that will recur throughout the song. We go back a few days earlier: the arrival in Budapest. Here the protagonist talks about an episode that marked him deeply; he's in Budapest to shake it off. It will become clearer later what this refers to. The protagonist wonders if he feels free when he is alone or when he is with "her", and he does not understand if he wants to be next to her or far away because he experiences conflicting sensations and desires. A man in a total crisis is what we see in the spoken part of the song, while the main theme flows in the background. The song strikes for its simplicity mixed with an emotional intensity that is surprising, mainly dictated by Daniel's voice, which manages to convey anxiety, confusion, and frustration to those listening to this track.
3. Fandango
   This is a song with a sharp rhythm and Spanish-like tones where piano, guitar, bass, and drums alternate and blend in an enveloping way. In the chorus of this song, the protagonist wonders why he lives, wants to have answers, only to realize that living, already knowing the answers, would make no sense. Life and love themselves will offer paths, possibilities: it's precisely by living and making mistakes that these answers will be obtained. In the verses, however, it talks about two children, a boy and a girl who like each other. Each one observes how the other faces the world; both want to come out on top in a blind and deaf world, trying to find their way through their dream of love, sometimes tainted by errors dictated by their innocence, yet still pure. In contrast with the verses, with a driving rhythm that still conveys that underlying uneasiness, there is the chorus where it slows down and finally conveys relaxation.
4. Trace Of Blood
   This song starts with a fast piano motif followed immediately by the rest of the instruments. The song initially misleads, seeming like the prelude to something beautiful. Suddenly the sounds of distorted guitars come in, and the song becomes darker. Indeed, this song talks about a real event that happened to Daniel Gildenlöw's wife. She was expecting a child, and one morning she woke up to discover she had had a miscarriage during the night. In this song with heartbreaking lyrics and music, Daniel recounts the emotions experienced at that time and afterwards by him and his wife, namely anger, desolation, frustration, and despair that are insurmountable in their hearts. Daniel’s voice reaches very high levels of expression, and the music perfectly fits to tell the situation. The choruses, in which Daniel hypothetically addresses what would have been his firstborn, are touching.
5. This Heart Of Mine (I Pledge)
   We return to smiling in this track, a delicate and classy song. It is a declaration of love that Daniel writes to his wife, with a finale in crescendo where the singer recalls and strengthens the conviction of his love in the words he speaks, a sort of vow of faith. Very beautiful and relaxing, decidedly different from the previous one. A very simple song, where the instruments mostly limit themselves to accompanying Gildenlöw's seductive voice.
6. Thorn Clown (Japanese Bonus Track)
   Initially, the track resumes the musical theme of the song Chain Sling. It talks about a man who now lives his life to please those around him, forgetting who he once was, losing his true self. And this situation almost drives him crazy. Musically it is the weakest track on the album, so much so that it is, in fact, only a bonus track.
7. Undertow
   Here is Undertow, one of the darkest tracks on the album. The song starts only with a mournful and melancholic guitar that accompanies an apathetic Gildenlöw. And this is exactly what it initially expresses, apathy, which then turns into hysterical anger and frustration, finally returning again to apathy. It is the cry of the protagonist who wants to be let go, wants to be free, wants to take his blame, wants to be alone, even though he feels bad. In the middle of the song, the theme of This Heart Of Mine is heard again, as if wanting to recall that vow, now shattered like his relationship. The finale in crescendo is spectacular, Gildenlöw’s voice becomes scratchy, almost reaching a scream.
8. Rope Ends
   Another song that's far from happy. The song starts with strange times, spilling over into a verse filled with worry. It tells the story of a 20-year-old girl, with two children from two different fathers, who decides to end it all. She tries twice to hang herself in the bathroom, but fortune does not allow her to succeed. In fact, first the tie she uses around her neck breaks, then the second time the bathroom ceiling gives way. And she lies on the floor almost unconscious, wounded but still alive. The chorus is repeated many times during the song and expresses all the drama and despair of the situation she lives while about to die, while her last breaths pass through her throat. A very beautiful instrumental part is in the center of the song. The song is inspired by two real events that happened to Daniel and his wife. Particularly, Daniel had the opportunity to witness a friend attempting to hang himself; luckily, he managed to free him and deter him from trying that extreme act again.
9. Chain Sling
   This song is the opposite twin to Fandango. This time the dance, with Latin and folk tones, is not of two souls in love, but of two separating. Indeed, the song opens with one imploring the other, who cannot live without their partner. Meanwhile, in the chorus, the other person says that there is no remedy for this relationship, that it must be let go. It is a song with a folk-acoustic imprint, but it does not lose power or delicacy at the same time, depending on the role the singer plays.
10. Dryad Of The Woods
    The first instrumental song of the album is acoustic. Very relaxing, it seems to reconcile with the world, evoking the same sensations as This Heart Of Mine. This too is a song Daniel wrote for his wife. A piece with very beautiful arpeggios and melodies.
11. Remedy Lane
    The album's second instrumental track is diametrically opposed to the previous one. It is a track where only keyboards (synthesizers) and percussion appear. An atmosphere of unease and discomfort is breathed. The song reprises some of the motifs of previous songs, such as Rope Ends and Ending Themes. The title track manages to encapsulate the full meaning of this concept.
12. Waking Every God
    We return to Budapest, the first time the protagonist was there. The song talks about the protagonist’s newfound freedom of spirit, who is ready to reconstruct his love with a "her", starting from his new state of mind. The song is a continuous evolution of musical plots, as if the music suggested a rapid and frenetic change in the protagonist's mood, a new state of euphoria.
13. Second Love
    A stunning ballad, as simple as it is convincing. A song written when Daniel was 16-17 years old, it talks about a boy with a broken heart after a love disappointment. The perfect song for a music video or for lighting up lighters at a concert. As usual, Daniel's voice demonstrates incredible versatility and manages to be convincing regardless of what he is singing.
14. Beyond The Pale
    And here we are at the concluding chapter of the concept; we return to the present, in the hotel room in Budapest. The song begins quietly, with guitars repeating the same motif throughout the verse. The protagonist and the girl now reunite and have sex. They were the kids from Of Two Beginnings. Now, nothing can stop him from his desire for the woman, but at the same time, he understands he is not what he wants to be, and he wonders why he does not feel free now that he is with her. The chorus where he screams this is very intense, with various vocal tracks layered over one another (a staple of Pain Of Salvation). The song always oscillates between moments of anger, lust, and confusion, with consequent musical changes. Both musically and lyrically beautiful is the piece after the two choruses, where the protagonist acknowledges his weakness. He mistakes for freedom that fleeting moment when "he feels alive", that is when he crosses a girl's gaze and desires her, but realizes that, in this way, he only hurts and mutilates his soul. He will not find what he seeks this way. Immediately after the song continues with an almost "rapped" piece in scream, where the protagonist realizes that he has come to all these realizations thanks to his sense of inner honesty, but now feels he has lost control, and does not know if he is still sincere with himself. For this reason, he was forced to take a walk along 'Remedy Lane'.
    The album ends with whispered phrases, particularly "WE WILL ALWAYS BE SO MUCH MORE HUMAN THAN WE WISH TO BE..", more often repeated throughout the album.
     
    In summary, it is an album that encompasses a lot of musical complexity from a compositional point of view, but also in terms of the concept story, combined with a touch of class and elegance that Daniel Gildenlöw and his band often manage to give in their works. From my point of view, it is an album without flaws and finds perhaps its strength in the convincing voice of the leader, capable of elevating an already excellent musical work to a higher level. It is also not trivial that the music always serves the texts and what is being told. Something that does not always happen in the music world, in my opinion.