REMEDY LANE

One of Sweden's many fantastic bands, PoS has repeatedly blown away listeners with every album by constantly evolving and maturing with their sound. With the distinctive and amazing vocals of Gildenlow, the plethora of musical styles and influences seamlessly entwined into their music, amazing lyrics, deep and thoughtful concepts, and the pure passion of the music, it's hard not to like this band, as many people here would agree. I thought it would be impossible for PoS to top their beautiful 2001 album The Perfect Element part 1. After a month of listening to it I called it The Perfect Album. Never before had I heard anything like it. See my review for more. With Remedy Lane, PoS has matured again and surpassed all expectations. It's also, besides BE, their most varied and most difficult to get into of them all. Not saying any of their stuff is easy to get into...but this has so many different styles, it's difficult to swallow quickly. Once you have fully digested the album, though...it's almost a masterpiece. Almost. The Perfect Element still outdoes it, but just barely. The only reason this is a four star review instead of five is because The Perfect Element is so amazing. Much like why Lightbulb Sun or Ghost Reveries only get 4 stars...because respectivelly, In Absentia and Blackwater Park are so amazing and better.

The thing that pushes this album into the realm of really wonderful albums...I don't think too many exist, masterpieces that is...is the amazing lyrics and vocals. This album focuses on the life of lead singer Daniel Gildenlow and his many problems. The main problem I believe talks of Daniel and his exposure to sex and whatnot as a child and how he eventually did something bad...take a guess what...to someone he cared about. Another problem, as seen on "A Trace of Blood" talks of his wife's miscarriage. Just following along with lyrics and listening to the song and the emotion makes you truly understand the album and why it is the way it is. It makes the album much more amazing and profound.

Musically and songwriting-wise, it's no slouch either...I'd rank it as better than any of their other albums except TPE part 1, and just barely lower than that. The album opens with "Of Two Beginnings", which is a perfect intro and really throws you into things. "Ending Theme" is more simplistic but incredibly addictive, mostly because of the vocal performance and the feel of the song. The speech in the middle is one of the parts of the album tha is fascinating to follow along with with the lyrics.

Fandango is probably the only typical PoS song as defined on OHBTCL on this album. It's very very progressive and technical and has good emotion, but unless you really dig EVERYTHING on OHBTCL (which I don't), this song is only very good. Luckily, the next song, A Trace of Blood, is phenomenal. Please, follow this one with the lyrics, it makes it so much better. It's very dynamic and the vocal performance is amazing as usual. The chorus is incredibly addictive and everything about it is very easy to listen to yet awesome in every way. Might be my favorite song on the album.

I started off hating This Heart of Mine, but now I love it. Good lyrics, really nice to listen to, emotional, good stuff. A very pleasant laid back song. Undertow is more laid back and is in the same style as Chain Sling...focuses on soft parts leading into fairly loud parts. Great guitar work all around, good stuff. In between them is Rope Ends, which is probably the heaviest song on the album. Very dynamic, much like A Trace of Blood. The beginning has some very interesting rhythms going on, difficult to follow. The chorus gets a little annoying, but whatever. The second segment ends with Dryad of the Woods, which is a nice laid back instrumental with nice melodies and guitar parts.

The final segment opens with the two-minute title track, which explores some nice keyboard and drum work all around. It just goes through several earlier melodies of the album and is a great way to open the third part. Waking Every God is a more energetic track, similiar to Fandango except a little more pleasent with melodies, good basswork on this one, that always sticks out. Pleasent song, more good vocal work. Next is Second ove, which is good, in the vein of This Heart of Mine, except not as memorable. The "I want you to know, I can't sleep any more" part is great, though. Not bad, though. Beyond the Pale, the last track, uses a repetitive guitar part the whole song, but it never gets boring. It's another wonderful track with great dynamics throughout. A killer track.

So...I give this a 4.4999999. It's not a five star, but it's so unbelievably close...it's a masterpiece of progressive rock/metal, but it's just not on the same level as the ones I've actually rated five stars. I'm really torn on this one...just buy it anyway.