Band Name - Pain of Salvation
Genre - Progressive Metal
Label - InsideOut Music
Release Date - January 13th, 2017
Line Up -
Daniel Gildenlöw - Vocals (lead), Guitars, Lute, Bass (additional), Keyboards (additional), Drums (additional), Percussion (additional), Accordion (additional), Zither
Léo Margarit - Drums, Percussion, Vocals (backing)
Daniel "D2" Karlsson - Keyboards, Grand Piano, Vocals (backing)
Gustaf Hielm - Bass, Vocals (backing)
Ragnar Zolberg - Guitars, Vocals, Keyboards (additional), Accordion, Zither
Near death experience has always been a great catalyst for the creation of great music. And the latest by 'Pain of Salvation' is another example of this fact. 'Daniel Gildenlöw' wrote beautiful lyrics depicting grief and sadness regarding the closeness of death among other such concepts. The progressive aspect of the band's instrumentation augmented by the exquisite transition between aggressive heaviness and emotional slower bits complement the lyrics making the whole experience rather poetic.
It is quite unusual for me reviewing a metal album starting with the lyrics at first. But 'In The Passing Light of Day' is such a poetic album, it would be almost a crime to disregard the strength of its lyric. I will give a few examples of the poignant emotional depth of the lyrics - the album starts with 'On a Tuesday' which describes in emotional words what it means to for someone in deathbed just to survive another day. 'Tongue of God' details the meaninglessness of positivity one sometimes feels when facing death. 'Meaningless' deals with the guilt-trip that sex often provides. 'Silent Gold' is sad little love song. And the ending title track is another grand emotional love song dealing with the emotions that one faces at the end of a long relationship. The whole album is full of emotional storytelling and heartfelt grief detailing with love and death.
And now I come to the music, which has tons of lovable progressive riffs; aggressive, heavier parts often ranging to disorganized and chaotic bits which adds even more emotional depth; there are slower soothing instrumental bits too; and excellent use of varied vocals complementing the instruments and lyrics. The transition between heavier and calmer parts of the music is done quite skillfully most of the time, although I did find a few songs quite annoying ('Reasons' & 'Angels of Broken Things' to name two) with their unorthodox structures.
This is an emotional album dealing with the hopelessness of death and the despair one feels at the end of relationships among other concepts. The vocals and instruments were done quite brilliantly conveying the aforementioned concepts quite skillfully, and the delightful lyrics do give a listener strong impulses for repeated listens.
For me the stand out tracks from this album are 'On a Tuesday', 'Meaningless', 'Silent Gold', 'Full Throttle Tribe', 'The Taming of a Beast' and 'In The Passing Light of Day'. Actually, all the tracks are quite complimentary to each other as this album does have the feel of a skillfully gelled together concept album.
Overall Score -
8.5 out of 10.
For more info check out the bands official website and their metal-archives page -
https://painofsalvation.com/
https://www.metal-archives.com/bands/Pain_of_Salvation/547
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