SCARSICK

Scarsick is an incredibly tough album to rate. It is so different from what Pain of Salvation has done for years--symphonic progressive metal. On their past three albums--The Perfect Element Part 1, Remedy Lane, and BE--Pain of Salvation would refine their music until it ebbed and flowed with peaks and valleys, ultimately culminating in a cathartic release at the end of the album. On Scarsick, the entire album is the cathartic release. It is Daniel Gildenlow's rant about society and why he has reached the point where he can no longer hold his anger. It is much less refined than every other Pain of Salvation album; Gildenlow spews the vulgarities we all do when we watch something on television that just pisses us off. The use of harsh language is not unwarranted, for Scarsick is an album of extremes: extreme anger, extreme frustration, extreme exhaustion, and the reactions to these emotions are conveyed very well. The lyrics here capture the same personal anguish felt on past albums, but the subject matter gives the lyrical content a more distant feel. It is not INDIVIDUAL vs. INDIVIDUAL anymore, but rather INDIVIDUAL vs. SOCIETY.

Scarsick is an abrasive listen, especially for the seasoned Pain of Salvation listener. I was taken aback at how un-PoS-like this album is when I heard it first. Comparisons to Linkin Park were made on the ProgArchives forum, and I can see where the people exclaiming this supposed likeness were coming from. Several songs here feature rapping of sorts, similar to Gildenlow's rapping on "Used" from The Perfect Element Part 1. Of course, I would consider it more speaking fast than rapping, but people will envision it how they will. In another song, Daniel wails with a cathartic intensity than would be expected of a screamo band, yet the music underlying such a convulsion of emotion is nothing like that of a screamo band. This illustrates the main musical factor in Scarsick: breaking down barriers. Prior to the release of Scarsick, one might have said that Pain of Salvation were a constantly evolving band. Now, when viewing this album compared to the rest of Pain of Salvation's output, it seems like they played it safe for a great amount of their career, only now daring to fully embrace their once-minor excursions into different genres. "Disco Queen" is a dark, brooding narrative of lust for a celebrity--with an appropriate if shocking (possibly hysterical) disco-esque chorus; "Scarsick" slithers with a slight tinge of Middle Eastern flavor; and "America," a diatribe on the sicknesses of American culture, embraces modern rock to an extent.

Despite my raving about the new direction Pain of Salvation took with Scarsick, the band succeeds mainly when they stick to the style that made them great. Too strong of a deviation, as with "America," and they start to become unfamiliar and repulsive. The best songs on Scarsick, "Kingdom of Loss," "Idiocracy," and "Enter Rain" are all readily identifiable to the listener vaguely familiar with Pain of Salvations style of Progressive Metal. Others, such as "Scarsick" and "Spitfall," are largely explorative, yet still successful. This just emphasizes Pain of Salvation as a band that cannot be pinpointed or forced into a narrow category; as soon as one tries to do so, they'll surprise us all. Pain of Salvation threw a curveball with Scarsick. it may take awhile to appreciate this radical change in Pain of Salvation's style, but the album has enough gems to make it worth the time and effort. As to the revelation that Scarsick is "The Perfect Element Part Two," it feels so different from the first part that I have a hard time associating the two. The connection between the first and the second seems threadbare as well. Well, I believe a final installment is in order, and I hope that it turns out well. Though I like Scarsick, I hope the band rediscovers their old style of metal.

3.5/5