Pain of Salvation - Road Salt

[Jamyu]

Anyone heard this? (Sorry if it's been posted, but I flicked through the pages and couldn't seem to find it)

Opinions?

I reckon it's no 'Be' , but then, there never will be another masterpiece like that from this band, or at least it's doubtful.

I prefer this new album to 12:5 though.

[EvilDragon]

I did. And while its their "weakest" album, so to speak, it's still darn good. Daniel is a genius and he can never go wrong, at least when I'm concerned. POS is an amazing band, I would even dare to say probably the best or one of the best modern bands on the scene today. So much musicality, so much emotions and so much everything... Love 'em!


Gonna get to see them 24th in Budapest!   8-)



BTW, 12:5 is a freaking great unplugged album - especially the vocal work. And while "BE" is an amazing concept, to me their most flawless album is Remedy Lane, because I can relate to some parts of that story, a LOT.

[dtscape10]

I was really not impressed with Road Salt... I'll have to give it another go to be fair. 8-)

I love "BE". It's an amazing cd.. along with the dvd of the live performance. I also like "Scarsick" and "One Hour By The Concrete Lake".

Daniel is an amazing singer.... One of the best as far as I'm concerned. Such power and emotion. Very theatrical in places.

The recent Live dvd (Ending Themes...) is brilliant as well... An extremely tight band.

[Ecosse]

It's a good album, very '70's esque to me.

Some cracking songs on it, Sisters is superb.

[EvilDragon]

Sisters, Where it hurts, Linoleum, all great, great songs!

Love all their stuff, but RN got me through the heart so bad.

[Jamyu]

Dragon: I'll give Remedy Lane another listen ^_^

Dtscape: I can understand that. Agreed with your points about Daniel's vocals. Superb.

[MrBabou]

Although I would say that Road Salt is a very different Pain of Salvation album, I totally love it. I actually liked it from the first listen. Yes it is very 70's-esque, and done very well.

I think this album will become sort of a hidden gem...

[ich_bin_besser]

Will be seeing them live tomorrow - with Beardfish supporting.  
I really like RS a lot. Sure it's different to the stuff before. I can't understand critics who say Band XY always sounds the same - and when they do something different, they don't want it. But well, it's always a matter of taste.

[spaceloaf]

Personally, I think Pain of Salvation's albums have become increasingly "hidden-gems" with each release.

It took me a long time to get into PoS in the first place (I think I had Remedy Land and The Perfect Element on my playlist for half a year before things started to click).  But since Be, it's been taking longer and longer for me to appreciate each album.

With Be, I was ambivalent about it when I first got it.  Now I love it.

With Scarsick, I didn't like it when it came out.  Now I like it.

With Road Salt, I'm still in the ambivalent phase.  While I recognize the musical brilliance, it doesn't scratch the PoS itch in the same way the previous albums do.  Also, I think the emphasis on sex in the album is kind of overbearing; it gives the album a lack of universality that the other albums have.

Hopefully Part 2 will put everything in context and help me truly appreciate this album.

[ich_bin_besser]

Oh, forgot to post my pics: http://entertainment.webshots.com/album/578796940fTzrya

Nice evening!! The mighty Beardfish won over quite a few people, I think.
PoS was very entertaining, playing a bit too much from tape (like the piano in "Road Salt").

[EvilDragon]

Also, I think the emphasis on sex in the album is kind of overbearing; it gives the album a lack of universality that the other albums have.

Daniel always puts sex in some way in their concepts, except on the first 2 albums and BE. But starting from TPE (and especially Remedy Lane), there's sex everywhere.

[spaceloaf]

Yes, Remedy Lane has themes about adultery, TPE has sexual abuse, etc.  Sex is not the focus of those albums; they just contain sexual themes.

But it seems that a lot of the songs on Road Salt are literally about the act of sex.  Not as a means to describe some grander theme, but just illustrating empty/unfulfilling sex.  I have to say that it's probably the first Pain of Salvation album where I really can't relate to the lyrical content at all.

At the risk of sounding pretentious, the songs seem to describe the kinds of immature mistakes and anguish that high-school kids might make.  I've long outgrown having those types of relationship issues.

By contrast, I think Remedy Lane is one of the most honest portrayals of a real relationship that I've seen in any medium.

[EvilDragon]

Remedy Lane is my fav POS album, definitely. BE is pretty much on equal level. In fact, I'm loving all of their concepts, they're so amazing!


Entropia

The album theme revolves around war and the weapon industry, and follows a family divided on their journey from East to West. Entropia as a word is a compound of Utopia (the perfect world) and Entropy (the thermodynamical destructive force that leads to all energy slowly fading and cooling the universe). Despite its seemingly global platform, lyrically, the album uses the whole of humanity to describe the features and functions of the single individual.

One Hour by the Concrete Lake

The album theme revolves around global water usage, nuclear power and weapons, and how these interact and result in spreading deserts and the marginalisation of indigenous people. The lyrics are based on the paper "Water War" that Daniel wrote when he studied Peace Work at the University of Gothenburg, as well as his later studies in Radiophysics (Ionised Radiation in Society). The album follows a man within the weapon industry who goes on a journey throughout the world to find out how his job affects it.

The Perfect Element, part 1

The album theme revolves around bullying, violence and destructive sexuality, and assumes the notion that everything we do in life is done in order to find balance for our flaws. The theme on this album is based on the similarly titled collection of poems that Daniel wrote in 1999, and is in many ways a modern "Bildungsroman" that focuses on two broken individuals' upbringing and destructive interactions that lead to facing and reconciling with the past. The album is the first part in a larger set where the first one describes the symptoms of societally "unwanted" individuals and how they contribute to creating the society of tomorrow.

Remedy Lane

The album theme revolves around miscarriage, infidelity and love vs sexuality. The lyrics follow a couple who, after a long time, experiences a great crisis and step by step seek the different causes leading up to it. As with all of Pain of Salvation's albums there is a strong theme of loss, and it investigates what drives us forward as humans, and what makes us lose our feeting. Where Entropia used the whole of humanity to describe the features and functions of the single individual, Remedy Lane goes full circle and uses an intimate story of the single individual to describe the features and functions of the whole of humanity.

12:5

The album is an acoustic live recording where songs from previous albums have been rearranged both musically and lyrically to form a loose theme about relations.

"BE"

The album theme revolves around creation myths, religion, hyper-capitalism, fractals and the hunt for eternal life. The lyrics follow a lost god's creation of humanity, who in their turn create their own images who become their gods in a neverending circle. Daniel uses as base the notion that all religions must be wrong – it's an innate part of their very nature. All creation stems from the creator's desire to understand itself, and in the long run all images we create eventually become our gods, as power relations built on need are doomed to change. Daniel compares it to two two-dimensional beings come to see a side each of a three-dimensional cylinder, they are doomed to forever argue about whether it was a circle or a square.

scarsick (The Perfect Element, part 2)

The album theme revolves around societal symptoms and describes our current societal structure as psychopathic. It continues where The Perfect Element, part 1 ended, now comparing societal events through the same glasses that society itself uses to look at individual symptoms of maladjusted and sick individuals. The main idea is taht society creates the individuals it fears, who in their turn create society for the next societal pendulum swing. We are formed and we form.

On the Two Deaths of Pain of Salvation

The album is a live recording where the artwork has been thematically adjusted to hint at a rebirth for the band. The double DVD Ending Themes emphasises that Pain of Salvation is a band in constant change who question themselves and reformulate the very defitions of their musical creations with each album. Artwork and menues are designed in detail to replicate a fictional TV-show.