PANTHER

Goosebumps, pure body rattling goosebumps is exactly what I felt upon hearing "Unfuture," the second track on Panther, Pain of Salvation's 11th studio record. Across 53 minutes, Daniel Gildenlöw and company employ menacing synths and somewhat muddied production to create an engrossing Blade Runner like dystopian vibe. You could be forgiven for at first thinking Panther constitutes a radical departure from the band's sound. But as the record wears on, the vintage dense and theatrical Pain of Salvation sound persists.

As with any POS album, the lyrics present us with a well-developed and thematically significant story. The opening track "Accelerator," which seemingly starts us off at the end of the story, has our protagonist, a quick minded misfit, facing down the measured and stoic establishment and challenging its narrative of how the world around them all has begun to go up in flames. The album proceeds to detail how it is we came to this point. I highly recommend reading Daniel's interview at Metal Injection for more insights