REMEDY LANE

It was the winter of 2006 when I first heard the Perfect Element. I did not like it and did not understand it at first. I was looking for loud music, with distortion, thunderous drums, melody and power chordes.The Perfect element wasn't any of these things. It was, and still is, a masterpiece of musical complexity, with multiple philosophical layers and a clear, perhaps even crude, view of the world. My 15 years old ears were not sufficiently sensitive to these things, and I gave the album up. Fortunately, I gave it another chance two years later, after I have learned a thing or two, and I knew pretty much what I wanted from myself, from the world and my music, three things connected so deeply with one another, it's always strange to me that people seperate them apart. on a second and more sober listening I found all those things I missed before. Ever since then POS became my favorite band. A little later I came across Remedy Lane. Quite a few people praised it as POS' best album, but I was skeptical. I heard it several times and I liked it, but it just couldn't reach the level of The Perfect Element, it just wasn't it. Here, too, I had to go through a kind of twist of perspective to understand the true ingenuity that lies within it. I had to develop as a person, to understand another piece of the world so that I could truly appreciate it. And this change, as you might expect from a teenager, occurred not too long afterwards. By the time I thought I knew everything about the world, I went to hear this album again as my mental state was not particularly stable and I found it comforting. the musical dimness, the lyrics, dealing with love and pain, spoke to me. So I found myself immersed in it, in its meaning, in the emotions it evokes in me. Slowly, through a gradual process, it became the epitome of my love for music. I just can not hear music the same way since. This album completely changed my attitude to music, the world, and myself (because, as noted, these three things are interwoven with one another). The truth is that at some point I abandoned it. It was so deeply ingrained in my head, that I didn't need to hear it anymore. I could also give credit to the emotional ascent I experienced in the last couple of years. This week, however, I had a slight regression, and I found myself going back to places I haven't been to in quite a while. I stared at my iPod, which has, on a permanent basis, the two albums I mentioned by POS, and I wondered if one of them could improve my mood. I decided to hear Remedy Lane again, and suddenly I found myself connecting to it in a new and different level, more mature, as if it revealed a new face that I did not know, which is unlikely because I've heard it dozens of times before. But still it was like this album changed its face completely. When I thought about it I realized that the reason for this feeling wasn't that the album had changed, because it , obviously, remained the same album, but rather because I had changed. How could an album conform to the soul of the listener in such a powerful way? The concept of the album is so far from me - it takes place in Budapest, and it has some sort dimness to it, the kind which belongs only to people who knew true hardship during their lifetime, which luckly I had not, and yet I feel so close to it that sometimes I think that it describes in words and notes my life. how does he do it, Daniel Gildnlow? How can a person that has absolutly no connection to the concept of the album feel like he's part of it? Daniel makes you feel as if you're participating in the album in the kind of way that filmmakers, writers and other musicians could only dream about. Daniel is a master emotional manipulations. this album has so much ingenuity in it and only a little of it is expressed musically. First of all and before all this album is about sexuality. Daniel puts the cards on the table right on the album's opening lines, and makes it clear to us. Unlike anything in modern Western society, and especially the entertainment culture - music, literature, television, cinema, which is based on thin sexual tension, delicate and subtle (sometimes more and sometimes less), Daniel addresses the elephant in the room right from the very beginning. The ingenuity in that is that it frees him to engage in other issues and gives him the opportunity to explore the true meaning of sexuality in our life. What this tells us is that as far as this album is concerned, again, contrary to what we have been taught to think by modern culture, sex is not the summit of human endeavor, it's only a means, it's only a stage in our development as human beings, it's only a glimmer of humanity in a sea of ​​thoughts and emotions we tend to ignore, but they are the human essence in the act itself. The album is a search for meaning made by a person who has lost his beloved, and as a result has lost himself. He starts with a desperate return to Budapest in attempt to meet with his lover from the past, and have a sexual experience which was supposed to solve all his problems. Slowly we learn the source of the doubts, and why the two parted, and what answers were received after that voyage, but not before we move along with the protagonist, through the journey along Memory Lane (an expression which is the inspiration for the album's name). What POS does better than any other band is to paint the human soul with musical notes. While other music is really just a collection of notes which are there because they sound good, or because they are suitable for mathematical or any other reason, POS's music is built of emotions. Each note comes exactly where it should to express a feeling, a thought, an idea . every strum has a meaning, every drum beat and every scream. Take for example the song "A Trace of Blood". It tells the true story of Daniel's wife pregnancy which ended with an abortion, and the emotions involved. The song begins with a fast and joyful keyboards line, like the emotions felt by young parents designing their happy future, it puts a smile on your face. little later the song brakes into a heavy guitar riff which overshadowes the joy, like a message that something is wrong with the fetus. The lyrical complexity of the song reaches its climax in the last chorus in which Daniel expresses his total control of language - "I never saw your face and now you're gone without a trace, except the trace of blood that's deeply scarred into my eyes to fill your place." Another good example is the remarkable duality between the songs "This Heart of Mine" and "Undertow". The first is a beautiful love song which demonstrates Daniel's diverse and fascinating language and describes his love for his wife. it begins with a calm and mellow tone as its opening words describes a quiet and peaceful scene, and slowly build up and culminates in a heart rending solo that emphasizes the emotional outburst that this song is. a perfect burst of true love. The song has two layers, the real dimension and its conceptual level as part of the album. In reality the song was written as a love song to Daniel's wife. In the album it describes the love the protagonist feels towards the Hungarian girl, the trust formed between them, the promises that were promised. At this stage of the album, the listener is not yet aware of the source of the rift in the relationship, so it looks like a sincere and genuine emotion between two people in love. Precisely for this reason, the next song seems a little odd, almost detached from reality, because it is the exact opposite of it. It's a song of pain, a song of despair, of grief, of desire for independence. the repetition of the words Let me go, let me fly, let me run, let me bleed, let me die makes the despair the hero felt clear. We still don't know what the source of this pain is, but we can feel it. This is the memory of the breaking point. The point in the relationship where the protagonist just wants to go, escape, not verbally or physically, but spiritually. He wants to be free from a lost love, the promises he had promised her, the world he created with her. The song repeats the same riff over and over. It starts quietly at first, expressing some kind of quiet even sleepy desperation, which changes the second time to grief, then anger, then panic, and finally back to despair. The real beauty in "Undertow" is that in the middle of it the melody from the second half of "This Heart of Mine" enters, as if to remind us what the source of all this pain is. Because all this time, even when the distortion goes crazy in the background, the drums roll and Daniel screames his throat to death, the memory of that perfect love is still there, in his mind, and even in moments of despair, grief and anger, it's still there, and that's exactly what the protagonist is trying to break free of. More of Daniel's ingenuity is revealed in the song "Second Love". If I'd have heared this song apart from the album, I would have said it's a typical pop song not characteristic to POS and probably wouldn'y give it any further hearings. But as part of the album its an integral part of the concept. It was written by Daniel when he was 16 and speaks exactly about the theme of the album, love and loss, with the language and simplicity of a child of 16. Daniel wanted a song that feels true and genuine, so he put it there, because it was real, real pain of a child. This album has an element of musical beauty. POS are not limited to limitations of modern music. It's sometimes difficult to distinguish a logical structure in their songs and sometimes even a uniform rhythm. Because POS does not play music like we are used to. Instead, they do what they need to do in order to express the emotion they require.they are not the kind of progressive music reflected in thousands of solos and virtuosity, they are progressive in spite of themselves, because their music too, like the human soul, changes over time, adapts to the spirit of things, made up just like the people who created it and those who hear it. Ever since I heard this album my life weren't the same anymore. I'm not listening to music the same way. In fact, this album signifies to me, above all, the last time I was really moved by music. When I hear it, and the Perfect Element to be honest, I shudder and fill with shivers. I've yet to encounter this phenomenon with any other album. I've been looking for more music like this ever since. original music originating from the soul, the kind that you connect to in so many ways that sometimes you would rather keep quiet and let it speak instead of yourself. I hear a lot of music, and I try to hear something new every week. I Have not found anything that transcends it. This is perfection.