PAIN OF SALVATION

Well, first i'm glad to submit the first review of this expected ep, but also a bit surprised nobody did it first, as Pain Of Salvation is THE cult prog-metal band of many, myself included. Instead of giving a track by track review, i will try to put general ideas of the ep as a whole, with a few exceptions of elements worth mentioning. At a first "glimpse" the music strike me as dark, heavy, eclectic, with retro elements like the classic organ sound and the doomy-sabbath like riffs. If Pain Of Salvation is to be defined by a word, besides progressive, that word is eclectic. Like in the two past albums BE, and Scarsick, in this last one there are a lot of musical elements blended in a perfect mixture, like the aforementioned retro organ sound, the doomy-sabbath riffs, but also bluesy and psychedelic guitar lines, busy Bill Ward like drum fills ( courtesy of new drummer Leo Margarit), industrial or almost death metal growls by the always amazing Mr. Gildenlöw. If a clue towards the new album is to be seen here, i'd say it must be the tendency of the music to a more dark, moody, melancholic, but also angry character. The only particular song i'd like to mention for being such a nice surprise is Yellow Raven, a cover of The Scorpions from the Roth-era album Virgin Killer. This song fits very well with the overall nature of the album and rounds it perfectly. It's such an emotional song like the original, with Gildenlöw's voice and Hallgren's guitar bringing chills to the listener's spine. (At least for this one, hope it does the same for everyone). If this ep is just a taste, i can't wait for the next album, hope it comes out very soon.

An excellent debut from Pain of Salvation!

Pain of Salvation is one of my favorite modern progressive metal bands. Their album "The Perfect Element, Part One" is one of my favorite albums ever released from any genre. So where did this excellent Swedish band start out? Not too far from perfection, to be honest. Their debut album, "Entropia", shows their immense amount of skill, excellent arrangements, beautiful melodies, and overall excellence as a band.

One of the things that this album has that actually isn't present on the band's future albums is the overall funky vibe of this album. This is primarily because there is a lot more slap-bass present on this album, though there is something about the songwriting here that is different than it would be on their following releases. This has many sections with jazzier drumming, excellent electric piano, and more jazz-rock sounding guitars. This "funky" sound on this album is actually one Pain of Salvation does well while maintaining their progressive metal style. I actually wish they would have done something like this on more of their albums.

Other than the more funky feel on "Entropia", this is your typical Pain of Salvation album. It has the dynamics between heavy and soft, very melodic vocal lines, and pure beauty through each song. Pain of Salvation is actually one of the only bands I know that can play with so much emotion in their music. Part of this is because of the excellent melodies that Daniel Gildenlöw is capable of writing, and part of it is because of his excellence as a vocalist. Whatever the reason be, that is one of the main reasons why Pain of Salvation is one of my favorite prog metal bands (and trust me, I've heard more than my fair share of prog metal bands).

THE MUSIC

"! (Forward)"- The opening track opens with a metal riff that is followed by a short string interlude before the vocals. Once the come in, a light guitar riff enters and it goes back into a heavier section. This part is actually pretty dark, but the assault of different sections and time signature changes work very well. An excellent way to open up a great album!

"Welcome to Entropia"- The sound of the ocean on the shore opens up the first song in Chapter One, and then a light electronic drum beat enters. Some synth chords are used as well.

"Winning A War"- This starts with an upbeat guitar chord progression. After the heavy drums let down a little bit, a light guitar riff comes in. It builds back into the main riff, and it has a nice chorus as well. I really like the keyboards in the latter part of the song, and they are present throughout most of the album. A really good song for sure.

"People Passing By"- My favorite track on the album opens up with a funky bass riff. Soon the whole band comes in with the glorious odd time signatures. It has nice use of keyboards and guitars in the brief, but effective, opening. It soon turns into a different section with a more metal-oriented tone. It later has some really nice choruses and vocal harmonies that make Pain of Salvation famous. A truly excellent song.

"Oblivion Ocean"- After the awesome previous song, Part One of Entropia closes with this song. It is a low guitar melody with some beautiful vocals. It has an electric piano during the choruses, and it is pretty effective. The whole band never enters in this song, but it is very effective how it is. It builds well, mostly due to the excellent vocals.

"Stress"- A rhythmic percussion section opens up the first song of Part Two. This song is very tough to take in, and it is very complex. The keyboard melodies are very good, and one could argue that this is a very disjointed song. The ending is very good, though.

"Revival"- An uplifting guitar riff starts this excellent song. When the vocals come in it has some nice melodies and some great progressions from each section. The last two minutes really are great.

"Void of Her"- This is an excellent bridge between the two songs, and it is entirely instrumental. The guitar is indeed impressive.

"To The End"- The Second Chapter closes with the album's heaviest song. It starts with a pure thrash riff, and it's one of the few moments on the album that's actually fairly heavy. I really like some of the bridges, and the guitar solo is very effective.

"Circles"- This song opens up with a bass riff. That fades out into guitar chords and spacey vocals.

"Nightmist"- It opens with some very Latin sounding riff, and soon the entire band enters. The vocals soon enter into a great chorus that will be used throughout the song. The section in the middle has that funky vibe again that makes this album stand out. The opening riff soon returns, and the beautiful main chorus comes with it to close the track. Outstanding song!

"Plains of Dawn"- Tied for first as my favorite from this album, this beautiful song opens with a light electric piano melody. This features some excellent vocal harmonies, and I love the acoustic guitar solo near the melody. The chorus can literally get stuck in my head for days. After the beautiful main section, it suddenly (and ominously) turns darker, and a metal riff enters. It builds excellently to the song's climax at the very end with heavy keyboards. A true masterpiece.

"Leaving Entropia (Epilogue)"- After the heavy end of the previous song, this light acoustic epilogue begins. It is just a few majestic-sounding acoustic chords, and Daniel singing. While it doesn't sound like much by itself, in the context of the album, it's a very effective ending.

Conclusion:

All in all, Entropia is an excellent album deserving of a 4.5 star rating. This is surely one heck of a debut, and is essential for anyone looking to get into Pain of Salvation. While it is not as good as The Perfect Element, Pt. 1 (hardly anything is, to be honest); it still is an album worth getting for sure. It's almost worthy of my highest recommendations, but I still don't quite consider it to be one of Pain of Salvation's masterpieces. All of the ratings aside, I highly recommend this to any prog metal fan!

4 stars.

For me this album, at least is from the 5 best albums on the last 15 years, it has everything, and the parts that are spoken, well, many albums have songs like that and they are great, I like very much this album, specially for the lyrics, they are spiritual, they tell things in a perfect way, and the music to, Daniel Gildenlow composes very well, and sings very well to, many people thinks that The Perfect Elemen Part I is the best album of Pain of Salvation, but for me it does not have anything to do against BE

Sorry for my bad english I am from Argentina

After years of following progarchives, I feel the need to write my own review. The first one has to be really something special. I spent a couple of minutes staring at my cd stacks, and this album sort of looked back at me.

I remember how I first came to hear ! and Ashes samples from this site, and was mightily impressed with the band's intelligence and the hard metal edge, brilliant vocal and nice guitar work. These are the 'perfect elements' that attracted me to bands like Queensryche and Savatage.

Soon, this led me to my ebay hunt for this album (sorry guys. I am not that rich.) When this CD was delivered to my office, I was expecting some magic, and did not pop it into the computer CD-ROM like other cds before it. I know it's an important piece and it will need to be treated with care. Now, as I am writing this, I am giving it another spin so the details will come fresh.

Like other reviews say, this is a great work of art, albeit a tad tough to swallow. The concept is not what you might expect, but thank God Daniel spells (almost) the whole thing out in the booklet. Animae Partus opens the CD with somewhat intriguing monologue, and introducing the concept in a mysterious way. This whole thing is about a being who "will call myself GOD" and will "spend the rest of forever trying to figure out who I am". Not too much music, let alone prog metal.

Deus Nova is a prog metal piece as we know it. The lyric is very, very simple, citing statistics of the world's population. Tension increases as the population grows, superb build-up.

Imago has a folkish feel. It is still about this curious 'GOD' creating seasons and forests and beings. This track shows me one thing I love about this album, which is the role of the 9-piece 'orchestra'. Unlike some other prog-metal so-called symphonic attempt, the orchestra plays a big role here, not playing some plain chords in the background. Some of the key passages here would reprise again in later tracks. This track builds on to Pluvis Aestivus, which is one of the most beautiful piece of music led by Mr Fredrik Hermansson. With no words, I can feel the rain and virtually see the leaves and flowers growing from the tree. (Perhaps it's the picture on the booklet and the live DVD that induces these images.) Is that what you're trying to say Mr Hermansson?

Next come Lilium Cruentus. I love the woodwind instrument (not sure what it is) in the intro and the first verse. The more aggressive side of PoS explodes in second verse (A Scene in White and Grey). This track explores quite a lot of PoS potential actually, the soft, the aggressive prog metal and metal rap. Wonderful mix and great ending.

Now, if there's any weak track, it's Nauticus. Well, it's good, soft, basically an acoustic guitar, church-praying music with vocal overdubs. I just don't like about the low voice in the mix here. The lyric is a somewhat straightforward and less sublime. Luckily it's not too long.

Dea Pecunia starts with humorous dialogue between Mr Money and his chick (Cindy?/Sandra?). This is a mini 10minute epic with three parts about this character who I think representing the modern capitalism in this BE world which has grown up and its human inhabitant has reached our present level of civilisation. The story is a sub-theme that intertwine with that one about god. Read the booklet, it's there. Mr Gildenlow showing his theatrical singing prowess here, portraying a disgusting, greedy chauvinist millionaire (Here's to me... there will be nothing left for you). Guest vocalist Cecilia Ringkvist, who sings Dea Pecuniae, a female side of Mr Money, is worth mentioning here. After its bursting climax, Vocari Dei calms the pace down a bit. Interesting participative approach to songwriting here, and this provides for a very emotional track, even to a non-believer like me.

Diffidentia brings us the prog metal side of Gildenlow and co again. I just love this track as it's got everything I love in prog metal. Mr Hermansson's "paino riff" is pretty simple but effectively cool. Gildenlow once again shows he's a good rapper. Our anti-hero Mr Money decides to buy himself immortality. The track ends calmly and it could have segued right into Nihil Morari, which starts calm and build up to a pleasant reprise and the whole band and the orchestra perform darn well here with bursting energy, until it dies down and Latericius Valete transports the audience to 2060 AD, where the world of BE has failed, and its human or Imago has created Nauticus, which is a space probe in search of a way to save the earth.

Iter Impius returns us to the Mr Money character, who wakes up to find himself a sole survival of the devastated earth. This track is perfectly executed. Sorry I don't know how to describe such perfection in words.

Martius/Nauticus II describes how the man-made Nauticus gains a life of its own and becomes the new God. Then Imago reprises here again and closes the circle, which starts from God creating man in his/her image, then men creating God to save them from the final destruction brought upon by themselves. Nauticus II wraps up with interesting drum jam that sounds rather primitive, possibly symbolizing a new word beginning, and new mankind is made once again.

Most of the credit, including graphics, will go to Daniel Gildenlow for making this happen. Although this level of genius naturally calls for a superlative amount of ego, it seems like this whole BE disc is music-led, and no one instrument is overly dominant. It would be interesting if he decides to produce a solo album how it will sound like.

All in all, sorry for the very long review, but this album is an essential disc to my prog cd collection. Five stars is all I can give.

Easily the most misinterpreted PoS album. So many people have come down hard on this album (i suspect after giving it very little chance).

So at first listen, its a less complex, angrier and more modern metal sounding PoS, congratulations to all the critics who listened to it once and then posted a review to that effect. Were prog fans, so I'm assuming were willing to engage our brains a little here. This album acheives what it sets out to almost perfectly, it was always meant to be an agressive social commentary, and that is exactly what it is. Secondly, for the critics of the very aggressive and direct lyrics in the album, maybe you've missed the fact that this is indeed a 'part 2', the continuation of TPE's lead character. After a complete mental breakdown at the end of TPE, I dont think the aggressive nature in which the protagonist attacks the world around him is at all unfounded, in fact its very believable. Yes I get what your saying, Gildenlow is an amazing lyracist, he can write the most beautiful poetry in his songs if he wants, but here he didnt try and fail, that was never the intention. I wouldn't want every future PoS album to sound like this, but his lyrics strike with an unprecedented venom here, as always they have done what makes PoS famous, sacrificed in areas to make the most honest and empathetic portrayal of the characters feelings.

I wont bother writing a song by song review, I frankly think they are all very interesting and stand as a potent alternative to the rest of PoS's discography.

I would urge anyone in question to buy this album, maybe not as your first PoS album, this is not what you should expect from their other albums, but if your accustomed to the band, step outside your comfort zone, and let PoS take you where they dare to tread with Scarsick.

One Hour By The Concrete Lake is just a prog masterpiece. A great progressive metal album, with many style and rhythm changes.

It's really unbelievable that this is their second album. If someone heard the album for the first time, maybe would say that they are an old band with long history, but the real is that their are really young. Great rhythm changes as well as the orchestration.

Daniel influenced for many of the vocals on the album from Faith No More. Hallgren did great great job and for me this album make me say that Hallgren is one of the best prog drummers. The vocal melodies were beautiful, Johan and Daniel made a great duet.

It's an album that saw me many things about how progressive is. 5 stars because for me is a real masterpiece of progressive music.

This album is the most challenging one i´ve ever heard in my entire life,this is a piece of art ,the concept of this album is about the existence of god and the humankind,in this album it´s not important the answers to this subject ,i think what is important is the way this album passes his musical poetry to the listeners,the combination of nature with the primitive instincts of human beings is perfect ,the album has a tribal feel that makes you think about the Evolution and the Origins of Human Beings,Daniel is an amazing vocalist and his band plus the orchestra are in top form in this album ,only daniel could create this amazing masterpiece,to me this album must be put in the same league as other masterpieces like the dark side of the moon,close to edge,animals,etc.

A progressive metal band doing an acoustic album? What is that? A great idea.

Pain of Salvation is one of the major acts of the prog metal scene and one of their differences from the other prog metal bands is that they blend non-metal things more often to their music than other major prog metal acts, as Dream Theater, Symphony X, Ayreon, Opeth, etc. They were the perfect band to come with an acoustic album, and they reunited some of their songs from their previous albums with some improvisation and built a concept. Then they went all acoustic and recorded the album live, and the results are pretty good.

The album is divided into three "books", Genesis, Genesister and Genesinister. Genesis starts with an short instrumental intro and short acoustic arrangements from some of their songs follow, always with great playing and a great vocal interpretation. One interesting thing, apart from the superb acoustic guitar, piano and harpsichord work, is the vocal harmonies, adding sounds where most probably they would want heavy distortions and synthesizers. The result is very pleasant, mainly if you don´t compare to original songs, because the medley contains only short bits of most of the songs.

The second book, Genesister, is the longest part of the album, featuring complete arrangements of the songs. The longest, Winning a War, is a superb version, with excellent classical acoustic guitar bits, variations, strong piano arrangements, great percussion and superb vocals, delivering emotion. The other songs, Reconciliation, Dryad of the Woods, Oblivion Ocean, Undertow and Chainsling are all good and have more or less the same elements: great musicianship and inspired vocals. They blend very well delicate arrangements and aggressive parts. Oblivion Ocean and Undertow are highilights of this part, and Dryad of the Woods works very well being instrumental, with many changes and moods.

The third book, Genesinister, starts very well with Brickwork Ascend 1 and 2, which are very immaginative and skilled. This book blends the styles of the first two and contains versions of Second Love and Ashes that is are a must. They perfectly transformed the songs into love songs, with a perfect interpretation provided by Daniel Gildenlow and killer piano and acoustic guitar arrangements. The last song is a jam to end the album.

So, the album is an accomplished acoustic effort, with great musicianship, a nice selection of tunes and they successfully translated they prog metal songs into acoustic songs. This album is good not only by itself, but it can help prog fans who are not fond of prog metal to get into the genre. I recommend this album.

Pain of Salvation throws together the mysterious ideas of creation, the haunting prospect of the future of the Earth, and the death of the human race all together and throws it against the listener musically in a dark and solemn way. This is one of the most thoughtfully put together concept albums in all of prog and certainly prog metal. Themes are twisted around and serve to enhance the concept further than most, and the orchestra in the album adds much more emotion. Simple melodies and syncopated guitar chugging contrast in BE and make a beautiful and thought-provoking album.

People will probably be turned off right away from the album because of the large focus on the concept of the album. The first two tracks couldn't really be called songs, since both are largely based on narration, and only the latter ("Deus Nova") has music, which while containing lots of rhythmically complex syncopations is compositionally somewhat simple due to lots of repetition. There are also a lot of softer tracks, a couple of which are instrumental, like "Pluvius Aestivus" and "Omni", which due to their placement in the album could make listeners familiar with songs more traditionally 'musical' (for lack of a better word) find the album boring. Even narrative tracks like "Vocari Dei" featuring people leaving messages for God on his answering machine are musically beautiful but aren't in a standard music format, so people expecting an album containing a standard collection of songs should change their expectations right away.

Of course, there are more standard songs on the album, though they even stand out due to their wide variety of influences. "Imago" for example is mainly comprised of folk-based melodic instruments over tribal drums, with a lone oboe carrying a main theme beautifully in some parts. "Nauticus" is akin to chants sung by negro slaves in pre-civil war Southern US. Then there's the lengthy "Dea Pecuniae", which is a bit like an over-the top broadway track played by Pain of Salvation. The wide variety of influences helps reinforce the concept dealing with humanity as a whole. Of course, there are standard Pain of Salvation songs like "Diffidentia" and "Lilium Cruentus" with slightly heavy melodic metal playing the main role musically.

The concept, as said before, is the main focus of the album, not necessarily the music. This is partially what makes Pain of Salvation's work here so interesting, since rarely is there a band that sacrifices their musical writing for getting the story across. The story, also as said before, is quite ominous. While it begins with a 'god' figure explaining his/her method of creation by making all of humanity as pieces of god. As it goes on, mankind starts becoming less innocent and more malevolent towards god, their planet, and each other. A fictional character that represents humanity as a whole battles with god, and humanity suffers for it. The planet, eventually being narrated from around fifty years in the future becomes a very inauspicous place, and the idea that this is actually where society is headed becomes an important message from the band.

Overall, this work is a masterpiece. Sometimes artists feel they can pull off a concept and tell a story only musically. While Pain of Salvation has been able to use music in the past, their storytelling and criticism of societal flaws using narration as a large instrument in the album is innovative. BE is simply superb, and progressive in all senses of the word.

The concept with Pain of Salvation has always been important. In fact, the concept has almost equalled the music in terms of significance. But now, their follow - up to 'Remedy Lane', has shown how the concept can in fact match the music in overall importance, as we walk through the twisted chambers of Daniel Gildenlow's thoughts, with the ambitious and oh so controversial - 'Be'.

To begin with, let's clear up some confusion. There most certainly is music playing throughout nearly the whole album. It's not as if the long narrative passages leave no room for accompaniment, and only the opening and closing track (both very short) have no music whatsoever. In between the very beginning and end, unfolds the usual traumatic tale that one can expect from a Pain of Salvation album, only that this time, we have a story that deals with problems on a much larger scale, but that can be left for the listener to discover for themselves.

However, the reason why people perceive there to be so little music on this record, is probably something to do with the fact that many of the tracks are not characteristic of the band. Aside from a couple of exceptions, there are very few heavy guitar riffs to be heard, or driving songs in general. There is a lot of reflection on this album, with very mellow and emotional songs, which seem particularly moving in contrast with the towering rage of tracks such as 'Nihil Mohari'. In addition, the boundaries of the band are stretched even further as they continue to experiment, with new folkish influences, present on 'Imago' and 'Nauticus', and a classical interlude from the talented Frederik Hermansson, on 'Pluvius Aestivus'. Anything goes on this album, and the listener must remain open minded in order to reap the benefits.

But should we keep in mind that the music is much more varied, that there are many narratives, and the concept is essential to roughly understand, in order to perceive the emotions within the music, this album proves to be absolutely breathtaking. You are unlikely to find an album that takes you from the depths of universal nothingness in the beginning of time, to the apocalyptic and catastrophic destruction of mankind. From nothing to nothing, leaving only a god who seeks only to find himself, Daniel Gildenlow invites you to take a glimpse of an eternity. Yes, the music is more withdrawn, and large instrumentals never dominate the tracks, but this album feels like a lot more than just music. Only a band like Pain of Salvation could ever achieve this. Nothing can prepare you properly for the journey, but prepare to be astounded. This is absolutely brilliant work.

(4.5 stars)