SCARSICK

Sub-genre: Progressive Metal (More the latter than the former)
For Fans of: Dream Theater, Fates Warning, Faith No More
Vocal Style: Daniel Gildenlow's quality, full, rangy voice occasionally graffiti tagged with bouts of POD style rap metal blurtings and megaphonic spoken word
Guitar Style: Heavy Metal, yep
Keyboard Style: Varied piano and string patches, keys are de-emphasized on this album
Percussion Style: Standard metal kit, less double-bass than your average modern metal
Bass Style: Standard electric picked
Other Instruments: I think the mandola shows up with some other acoustic strings
Summary: Before hearing my first Pain of Salvation album I was often told that they sounded like Faith No More. I never liked Faith No More, so it was awhile before getting a POS album. When I first heard One Hour by the Concrete Lake I was amazed, I loved it and there were very few similarities to Faith No More. Well.Scarsick sounds like the Faith No More- like band that I was warned about. This is a very painful thing to have happened after the monumental precursor Be, the beautifully enlightened hands-down masterpiece of the POS catalogue. Scarsick is boorish, smug and uninventive. Gildenlow went from thoughtful progressive creations (in social, as well as musical contexts) to annoyingly trite, self-indulgent thematic repetition. Worse is the attempt to break up the monotony of the album with the painful failure at humor, Disco Queen. The song takes a disjointed stab at dance style commingled with uninspired rock riffs and highly banal social commentary. Particularly unnerving is the poorly executed rant, America. How did Gildenlow think that this would come off? For the most part he is just preaching to the choir. I, nor would I assume most POS listeners, would disagree with most of what is stated in this song. It is not in any way an original or educational sentiment. But the contradiction of a song about blind gluttonous imperialistic consumers, followed by band website entries congratulating themselves on airplay and topping various Metal charts is not lost on this reviewer. Did I miss something here? Is this what POS is all about?
The most enjoyable and arguably progressive moment is the song Idiocracy, with beautiful acoustic breaks and challenging rhythms; a breath of fresh air in an otherwise foul experience.

Final Score: This is without a doubt the most disappointing album of 2007. The masterpiece that was Be is nowhere to be found in Scarsick. For other bands, maybe this would fit ok in the catalogue and be a 3 star album. There are occasional good musical ideas, but they are few and far between. Unfortunately, downward momentum is really hard to break. 2 stars (given very generously)

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