The rest of the album is disappointing to me because of the vocalist I'm afraid. The majority of his lyrics are very trite, and he just tries too damn hard, dammit. Take 'Winning A War' for example. It starts out sounding like it will blow your mind and then Gildenlöw gets carried away and starts crying for his mommy and daddy. 'Oblivion Ocean' suffers a similar fate, being nice for a while and quickly wearing thin with Gildenlöw's over-wrought, theatrical, emotion-mongering and cheesy lyrics. Song after song rolls by with over-the-top vocals wrecking some promising music. Now cheesy vocals and lyrics are O.K with me, but the reason why they really mess the album up is that the production is so dry. With the drums, guitar and bass sounding so on-the-surface and the overall production devoid of reverb or echo, Gildenlöw's bone-dry vocals are pushed to the forefront of EVERYTHING, their theatrical nature overpowering the music and wrecking the album for me. He IS a great vocalist, he just tries too hard here. They aren't wankers of instruments so much, no insane shredding here, but I sure hope Gildenlöw has curbed his vocal-indulgence on later albums. I've heard a few good songs from 'Remedy Lane' so I haven't given up on Pain Of Salvation yet, but I'm guessing that if you are interested in this band you should not make the same mistake I did and start with this album. It's a blur of similar songs and frustrating vocals.

written by Tim Blake

Playing time: 60.00