Pain of Salvation
Scarsick

Innovation. 

Incredible innovation is the only word to describe the music of Pain of Salvation. It's hard to describe the evolution of this group that I've always underestimated. Yet I'm amazed by these guys who with each album deliver ideas that are always fresh, new, original, and surprising for their musical and stylistic unpredictability. This time Pain of Salvation surprised me, and fortunately, I didn't stop listening after the first 3 tracks. An album lasting 67 minutes, which in the end seems so short, fast, yet compelling and transporting.

Scarsick, the new album, represents yet another chapter of an evolution that seems endless. Gone are the depressive atmospheres of “Remedy Lane” and the inhuman experiments of the controversial “Be.” This work features direct songs, less challenging, at times not progressive at all, equipped with various nuances and influenced by rap and occasionally ska, before returning to the shores dear to Gildenlow's unique voice.

To dwell on what is implied, this album could reveal itself as the long-awaited “The Perfect Element pt2,” because of some similarities in titles and some refrains and choruses of certain songs like Kingdom of Loss and King of Loss, or Idiocracy and Idioglassia. Or even, throughout the album, there are self-references that allude to the older “Entropia”... But anyway, these are all rumors not confirmed by the band.

Speaking strictly of the music, the album, as mentioned earlier, appears direct and less complex and cerebral than “Be.” It starts strong with the title track “Scarsick,” with rap-like elements, energetic. There's a near-total lack of instrumental and solo lines which advantage a greater homogeneity. The band’s claustrophobic and depressive sound seems almost abandoned in favor of an aggressive sound as in “Spitfall,” where Daniel ventures into atypical rap vocals. Romantic and melancholic atmospheres return instead in “Cribcaged.” A beautiful track, in which Gildenlow finally convinces me with a suffering and highly expressive singing. The track is organized in a fascinating ascending climax that quickly leads to the ska of “America,” an excellent experiment I would say. Experimentation forcefully repeats in the following “Disco Queen.” A long and complex track, at times monotonous in a passion (intended in its religious sense) sound in the more bewildered melody. “Kingdom of Loss” reiterates and increasingly highlights Gildenlow's strong emotion, who interprets with genuine suffering a sweet and decadent song, in stark contrast to the childish joy of the two previous tracks. In a chilling emotional progression, we hear Pain Of Salvation bringing us back into the abyss of human emotions, continuing in a schizophrenic atmosphere with “Mrs Modern Mother Mary,” a short and effective song. Calm and oriental, at times tribal atmospheres echo in “Idiocracy” while the vocal aggression returns dominant in “Flame to the Moth,” in a fairly simple song with a predictable but effective chorus. It closes depressively with “Enter Rain,” in a burst of soft and at times psychedelic sounds, a fascinating manifesto of the experimental capabilities of this group.

Never have Pain of Salvation engaged me like this. Yet in this album, they managed to abandon that emotional heaviness that has always characterized them, creating a work certainly emotional, but accessible, certainly passionate but capable of engaging, certainly depressive but endowed with glimmers of light.

They always amaze, and once again.