PAIN OF SALVATION
IN THE PASSING LIGHT OF DAY
CD/2CD mediabook/DL/2LP vinyl
Released 13th January 2017
The promise of a return to their more acclaimed heavier progressive sound is a cause for celebration indeed, especially considering the gestation of an album which might possibly have never been.
Some say every cloud has a silver lining. Ha! A life threatening illness involving flesh eating bacteria in hindsight might be more B-movie sci-fi fayre, yet the experience, the feelings and the emotions are what drove POS’s Daniel Gildenlow to use his brush with mortality to fire up his muse for his band’s breathtaking re-emergence for their first album for five years.
Fans who have bided their time through the ‘Road Salt’ albums and the re-issue of the masterful ‘Remedy Lane’ will need to gird their loins for an exhausting trip verging on a white knuckle ride through the deep and dark personal journey crafted from the Gildenlow experience. And despite the brutality and passion which coats the music, there’s a philosophical slant, pondering over the passage of time and the journey through life, talking of “the hope of tomorrow, the hope of change no matter how frail and naive that hope may be.”
As they say on their Twitter profile, POS lie “somewhere in the brave chaos of The Beatles, Faith No More, Jesus Christ Superstar, Jeff Buckley and Melodifestivalen: that’s where you find Pain Of Salvation.” And the rest. There’s no shortage of what Pain Of Salvation do best as ‘On A Tuesday’ sets the tone with a daring and uncompromising ten minutes of gripping and frenzied intensity yet peppered with moments of serenity. The first single ‘Meaningless’ provides a subtle introduction to a more accessible side, one which will feel immediately more comfortable alongside some of it’s more challenging partners.
Deserving the sort of thorough lyrical analysis which fans will love to delve into, the superb pairing of ‘Angels Of Broken Things’ and it’s blinding solo with the slow burning and brooding hypnotic train of thought explored in ‘The Taming Of A Beast’, capture the essence of both a bleakness and an acceptance of inevitability. What will be will be – leading to the thought that ‘In The Passing Light Of Day’ while not being their swan song may well be Pain Of Salvation’s definitive statement.
‘If This Is The End’ might make some of Roger Waters work sound like a tea party until a typically startling dynamic shift shakes you back into consciousness, many will find their attention is drawn to the fifteen minute title track whose pondering first half develops into a more intense close to bring things full circle and find closure on a musical journey for which the term ‘cathartic’ could have been invented. The passing light of day, maybe more a case of the light at the end of the tunnel, proves dazzlingly bright.
You can watch ‘Reasons’ from the album here:
The Pain Of Salvation website is at : http://www.painofsalvation.com/
They are also on Facebook and tweet as @thebestofpain
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All words by Mike Ainscoe. You can find more of Mike’s writing on Louder Than War at his author’s archive. He can be found on Facebook and his website is www.michaelainscoephotography.co.uk
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