Pain
Cynic paradise

After more than a year and a half since the release of the previous 'Psalms of Extinction', which left me somewhat disappointed, offering little more than a couple of decent tracks and an incredibly beautiful and original cover of Bjork's 'Play Dead', Peter Tägtgren returns with his project Pain, releasing a work that shows promise in terms of production, distribution, and publicity, as well as positive critical reviews in many rock/metal music magazines promoting its almost certain success.

What you read on the dedicated sticker placed on each copy of the CD is particularly realistic, namely: "the concentration of potential hits on this album is higher than ever". Indeed, out of the 11 tracks, at least 7 or 8 could easily be hit singles. I start with this to delve into the type of sound that this Swedish artist has reserved for us.
Ultimately, the recipe is not much different from that prepared in previous works, except for a greater search for what I believe to be fuller and more enveloping sounds of all the tracks and a pronounced catchiness, even in the fastest and most aggressive ones.
In this, Peter is assisted on two chapters of the album, 'Follow me' and the final 'Feed us', by the Nightwish singer, Anette Olsen, appearing here with vocalizations, sometimes taking the lead in the central refrains of the songs.

In general, the style remains the same: a mix of industrial metal sounds that nod to cult bands like Rammstein and The Kovenant and electronic goth rock with some keyboard insertions in a dark-wave manner, which almost touches pop in the clean-sung tracks, if it weren't for the dirty and/or sampled electric guitars with ultra-compressed sound.

The themes touched upon by the lyrics focus on discomfort, despair, lack of trust in relationships between people, loneliness, and human resignation, unscrupulous economic profiteers, highlighting all this in some episodes with repetitive and simple melodies that easily imprint on the mind, in others with immense sonic violence and screamed vocals with blind rage.

The tracks I personally appreciated the most during the first listens are the two opening ones for their sonic power: 'I'm going in' and 'Monkey business'. Then 'Follow me' for the fitting structure of the piece as well as the melody that infiltrates the listener's mind like a loop, but probably the peak of the album is characterized by 'Generation X' which perfectly succeeds in the sought-after task of blending melody and power.

There are two versions on the market, a regular one with an 11-track CD and a limited edition digipak with an additional CD containing 5 bonus tracks, including two covers, one of which is a distinctly personalized and barely recognizable 'Behind the wheel' by Depeche Mode, 'Here is the News' by the Electric Light Orchestra and finally three remixed songs by Pain, two from this album and one from the previous one. Those who already appreciated Pain will surely embrace this new chapter fully, while those who approach it without knowing them might be pleasantly surprised by what Peter Tägtgren's musically extremely open mind manages to blend, create, and finally release.

Can you look in my eyes
without telling me a bunch of lies
all I asked for was the truth
I thought it was me, but now I know it's you / liar!