Band:
Daniel Gildenlöw - lead vocals, guitars, bass guitar, banjos and samplers
Fredrik Hermansson - keyboards, samplers
Johan Hallgren - guitars, vocals
Léo Margarit: drums, backing vocals
Discography:
Entropia (1997)
One Hour by the Concrete Lake (1998)
The Perfect Element, Part I (2000)
Remedy Lane (2002)
BE (2004)
Scarsick (2007)
Guests:
Info:
Released: 12/5-2010
Reviewed:10/5-2010
Links:
painofsalvation.com
myspace
insideout
Pain of Salvation is a progressive rock- or metal band who plays music in the vain of the likes of Pink Floyd. That means that they of course play advanced melodic rock or metal with loads of surprises; that is the short description anyway, a longer one is too difficult to make. So progressive and advanced music will have to be enough for you.
This would of course mean that it falls within a genre, or sub-genre that I really like where many of my more favoured band linger. Does this mean that I like this band? Not really, I discovered them back in the early 2000s on a sampler from InsideOut, the track was Fandango from the record Remedy Lane which was a really good track. This led me into buying the record Remedy Lane which was a big disappointment really, I then heard that One Hour by the Concrete Lake from 1998 should be really good so I bought that one to give the band another chance. I listened to it and archived it, in the garbage. Since then I have never bothered to care about this band. Now that I have a review to make it was time to give them a new chance but you might notice that I was not really that thrilled by the new release.
So have Pain of Salvation improved since I last heard them? I would say that they have, this album is by far better than the ones I mentioned earlier. Does that mean it is a fantastic album? Well, being better than those two does not really require much in terms of quality. Still, Roadsalt one is a decent record, the songs are good and the production works fine, it is a solid effort for sure.
I especially like the video track Linoleum which is energetic and powerful, especially compared to earlier Pain of Salvation. I like the sixth track, Sleeping Under the Stars, even more probably much because it sounds extremely much like a Pink Floyd song. It is an excellent song to boot really, I can recommend these two tracks anyway but sure they are all quite good on the record really.
However, this record does not really resurrect my belief in the band. Most elements that I dislike about the band are still there. They overwork everything, they tend to make everything much longer than needed, much of the material are really sleepy and slow and all of these things are still present on this record, maybe in smaller quantities but they are still there.
So in the end I would say that this record is a step in the right direction compared to what I have heard before by this band. This however, does not mean that I will listen to this record now that the review is written.
HHHHHHH
