ONE HOUR BY THE CONCRETE LAKE

I've heard of Pain Of Salvation long before registering an account here at Prog Archives, but I was honestly surprised by how much attention their output had received here over the years. It's great that my fellow countrymen have had such a success outside of the homeland because they have been virtually unknown here in Sweden! For example, as far as I know, they never had a sold-out performance here in Stockholm although they usually play at small venues. When I saw them at Sweden Rock Festival 2008 the band had an hour slot between 2:00 and 3:00 PM at Zeppelin Stage which is the smallest of the four stages at the festival. Just for comparison Coheed & Cambria played their show an hour later at the Festival Stage which is the biggest stage at the venue.

It's not that I'm complaining, in fact I really enjoyed all of their excellent live performances that I've had the privilege of attending over the years. The private settings of these shows have in fact so far enabled us, the fans, to feel as if we are a group of the chosen few and every new Pain Of Salvation concert is basically another reunion between us and the band.

Hopefully this might put the band's choice of competing at the Swedish qualifications for Eurovision Song Contest in a whole new perspective. After all some exposure on national Swedish television will probably only do them good!

The Perfect Element Part I was my introduction to the band which I almost immediately followed up with this release due to the fact that Remedy Lane was not yet released at that particular point in time. This second album showed an already well-developed lineup with a lot of potential. The music here is you standard Pain Of Salvation material with an emphasis on their metal side. There are even slight hints of power metal featured on Handful Of Nothing but it all falls, for most part, within the context of the band's established sound and never seems out of place.

Still to this day I'm somewhat uncertain about my feelings towards One Hour By The Concrete Lake. Although Daniel's vocals are very emotional they rarely manage to get through to me in the same way as they do on the band's later works. On the plus side the album has an interesting concept and most of the compositions are strong especially the powerful conclusion track Inside Out which has always been my personal favorite off this record.

There is a hidden track at the end of the album but I rarely have the patience of sitting though 5 minute of silence before getting to it and it's great that non of their later releases feature this unnecessary feature.

***** star songs: Inside Out (6:37)

**** star songs: Inside (6:12) The Big Machine (4:21) New Year's Eve (5:37) Handful Of Nothing (5:39) Home (5:49) Black Hills (6:33) Pilgrim (3:17) Shore Serenity (3:13)

*** star songs: Spirit Of The Land (0:43) Water (5:05)