Pain of Salvation is a weird one. It has elements of Blues, Old school prog and Zeppelin era Rock n Roll whilst also featuring orchestration in parts and syncopated and polyrhythmic rhythms. Basically it’s an explosion of musical styles, and it does it well.
At first the music swaps styles so regularly it’s quite confusing to follow, but when you start concentrating on the music, it’s a beautiful journey delving into the soul. The varying musical styles also add to this effect and the journey just feels magical. There is no other word for it really.
This could quite literally be a soundtrack to a completely epic film, with tracks such as To the Shoreline having quite a Celtic sound, whereas Softly She Cries is very old school blues. There is more variance in one song that most bands manage to get onto an entire album.
The variance can be a bad thing as the music does sometimes feel fairly schizophrenic as it sometimes seems like the music doesn’t know where it wants to go next. Also as it has come only a year since Pain of Salvation’s last release (Road Salt One) it may be all too much for some people.
The band have recently been on the road with the likes of Dream Theatre and Opeth, and this is very apparent in their writing style that these two bands are huge influences on them, as the band seems like a blues version of Opeth.
Overall this is a pretty amazing album, and one I would definitely recommend to people who want a bit of everything from their music. (7/10)
James Merrett
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