SCARSICK

Scarsick is so far the lowest rated Pain Of Salvation album here on Prog Archives so what has this album done to distress the crowd the way it did?

To begin with there are quite a few changes to the familiar Pain Of Salvation sound that we've all grown to love and although most of the basic elements are still here they are repackaged into entirely new shapes and forms. First example of this are Daniel's lyrics and writing style that has become more direct, which at first was ok with me but soon felt like it was laking any deeper meaning. It doesn't help that Gildenlöw incorporates his anti-Bush politics in the texts which actually makes this whole affair sound dated even by 2010-standards.

Composition-wise the music too is lacking the regular dose of progressive metal and instead sounds more like a straight forward metal release. I mean Dream Theater's Train Of Thought gets a regular bashing for not being progressive enough but in comparison Scarsick is even worse. Even though the band did experiment with some more dance friendly material which actually worked well when I heard those songs in a live setting because it really made the crowd go crazy, in a good way. Putting these kind of compositions on a studio album felt entirely out of place and annoyed me more than words can express.

The concept of Scarsick is supposed to be a continuation of the story from The Perfect Element Part 1 which can be seen through the familiar song titles like Kingdom Of Loss and Idiocracy. This is of course all very nice but since I never cared much for the story arc of the first album I searched in vain for any composition that would even come close to the epic status of songs like In The Flesh and King Of Loss.

The last two tracks on Scarsick are actually surprisingly appealing in comparison to everything that came before which makes me believe that the band will hopefully rethink their strategy once they regroup for another studio recording.

**** star songs: Scarsick (7:08) Flame To The Moth (5:58) Enter Rain (10:03)

*** star songs: Spitfall (7:17) Cribcaged (5:56) Kingdom Of Loss (6:41) Mrs Modern Mother Mary (4:14) Idiocracy (7:04)

** star songs: America (5:04) Disco Queen (8:22)