ONE HOUR BY THE CONCRETE LAKE

I will start my special trilogy of POS albums with this one. I will do the debut also one day but I just managed to get hold of that one so I will start with its successor. The other 2 albums in a short while will be Remedy Lane and The Perfect Element

In the time this album was released it was immediately called a new sensation. I got curious because of that and bought the disc. What struck me most about the band and its sound was the vocalist Daniel Gildenlow and the vocals in general. Even though he does most of the vocals on his own (now and then assisted by the rest of the band) it is a constant feel there are more voices involved. This is of course a matter of how it is all mixed in the end but problem of it is: what do you do with live execution ? Well, I have never seen them live so I can't tell but I'm dealing with studio-albums right now so I will comment on that.

I must say: if you have never heard the band before it's all pretty overwhelming what these guys do. I already mentioned Gildenlow but also the rest of the band produce a very interesting sound and then there's also the compositions. Talking about originality: here's an example of how to be original. I think it's fair to say that Pain of Salvation is maybe one of the best if not the best example of PROGRESSIVE metal in the truest sense of the word. And then I mean if progressiveness stands for originality and innovation, the counterpart of cloning as quite a lot of bands tend to do. One thing is for sure: no band sounds like Pain of Salvation, they are very recognizable every time you hear them. This was illustrated when I checked them out with a few other albums of them as well as a lot of other bands on my Mp3. I can tell you: when a POS song takes its turn, you can tell right away and that is not just because of Daniel. I respect this band enormously because of this.

Now the strange thing is: after I also checked out the two successors of this album I got entirely and totally into this band and that lasted for several months. But after that I suddenly lost interest in them, mainly because of discovery of more new bands but also because I all over sudden seemed to be "out of them" just as quickly and easily as I got "into them". I don't know what happened exactly but strangely enough I never touched one of the albums again for a long time (more than 3 years).

It's just now that I forced myself to listen again for the review and I have the feeling the whole thing happens again with of course as big difference that I already know the songs but the appreciation is coming back and I am able to love the music again as it deserves ! Right now I'm listening to the whole album again and again I am overwhelmed. It's a bit of a magical band this Swedish quintet. What I remember of all those years ago is that my favourite songs then were Water, Home and Inside Out. Right now they still are. The other songs are great as well, just a little less. Special note about the semi-acoustic ballad Pilgrim: it contains the famous Gildenlow sentence: The more I learn, the less I know for sure. Significant lyrics !

What is left is the final judgement which can only be one thing for me. That's exactly 4 stars.