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Review Summary: This is another brilliant masterpiece from the band. It’s Daniel’s most personal album till then. “Remedy Lane” is the fourth studio album of Pain Of Salvation and was released in 2002. The line up on the album is Daniel Gildenlöw, Kristoffer Gildenlöw, Johan Hallgren, Fredrik Hermansson and Johan Langell.
“Remedy Lane” is a conceptual album, where the story teller is very complex, which Daniel wrote based on his experiences in Budapest, focusing on the search of a man to discover himself. It’s also about love, sex, a crisis in a relationship and the interactions with other people. The story of the concept takes place in Hungary, in different places, where the songs take us. This album is a meditation on love, lust and life, and is part autobiographical and part fictional of a period of Daniel’s personal life, and as he said, it’s his most personal album. The concept is based on severe emotional problems affecting Daniel and his wife during the summer of 2001. Daniel has said that the inspiration for “Remedy Lane” was an era of his life which he wished to understand the nature of freedom. These problems were fodder for “Remedy Lane”, a replacement to the darkly epic previous album “The Perfect Element, Part 1”, made a couple of years ago. As Daniel explains, the meaning of the album’ title “Remedy Lane”, is about an English expression “take a walk down memory lane”, which means “to visit your past or going to a nostalgic trip”. For him, it was what happened in the conceptual album, the need to reconcile ourselves with the past, to find remedy for our personal crisis.
The lyrics revolve around themes of regret and remembering one’s past. While the story is one that is hard to get around at times, the topics of each song are capable of effectively speaking to the listener on their own terms. Nearly every emotion is covered and the numerous topics covered, include regret and reflection, troubled relationships, a tragic miscarriage, love and happiness and the ambition at the expense of loss of a loved one. The album is essentially focused on a twelve year relationship that begins when its two protagonists were very young. The man in this relationship acts as the narrator of the story. Each song is a musical snapshot of various events throughout the course of this relationship, all the songs are dated and have noted locations, and shows how the protagonists react emotionally as these events are going to be played out. In short, it could have happened with anyone else.
Musically, the album could be praised for hundreds of reasons but the mainly of all is the diversity of the compositions. From quiet ballads to progressive madness masterpieces, this record has them all. Another trademark is its gigantic production. The sound is as clear as it should be on any progressive metal opus. To top all of the above, the Swedish band harbours one of the best singers I’ve ever heard, Daniel Gildenlow, whose performances in these songs are more than enough for me to rank him as one of the best progressive singers. He can do anything with his voice, which remains crystal clear. His lyrics are pure genius and prove that Daniel is the driving force behind Pain Of Salvation.
The tracks on the album really go all over the place and lives up to its progressive reputation. The song structures are wild and complex in their dissonance, the instruments are performed with technical ease, and the vocals range very passionate. The songs themselves are also packed with a good deal of variety and range from mid-tempo tracks, completely progressive tracks, more upbeat songs, love ballads and a sweet acoustic instrumental track. While it’s all very complex as well, the songs portray the stories of the lyrics very well and offer something for just about any kind of a listener. The variety of the music layers throughout is quite stunning, and vocally the group seems to have really hit their peak on this work. While in the past, many could noted in Pain Of Salvation’s music many similarities to Faith No More, with “Remedy Lane” the band has moved way beyond those comparisons and have created a style of their own.
Conclusion: “Remedy Lane” is the fourth consecutive brilliant album from Pain Of Salvation who can’t do anything wrong at this point of their career. Their works are like children of the same parents, all completely different and unique, yet bearing unmistakable similarities. It’s enough to say that they’re all brilliant in their own way. Relatively to “Remedy Lane”, we can say that it’s a worthy successor to “The Perfect Element, Part 1”. It’s equally brilliant and contains enough material to you really sit back and enjoy it for an hour. As the tracks are more complex and progressive, Pain Of Salvation have proven that they’re one of the leading and most creative exponents of today’s progressive metal scene. This album is so well put together that I think that even the common progressive rock lovers will enjoy it too, and just not only the usual metal heads. If you don’t have yet any album of the group because you aren’t a metal fan, put aside your fear and listen to it soon as you can. Be curious and an open minded, and experience and enjoy one of the most valuable bands out there. Pain Of Salvation has a huge career ahead as long as they can come up with such songs.
Music was my first love.
John Miles (Rebel)
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Album Rating: 5.0
January brought the release of a new album of Pain Of Salvation, one of the most brilliant and my favourite bands of our times in the prog metal scene, a long awaited albm by fans of the band. Sputnik saw four reviews of the album pratically at the same time, and another one some time later, and they are all very good. So, many comments are been written about the album and many comparisons are been made between it and the other previous albums of the band. I only had time to listen to the album a couple of times, while I made some other things at the same time. So, I'm not pretty sure about the album yet. At a first sight, I think that probably I'll rate it with a 4.0.
Meanwhile, it came to my mind that it will be time to review "Remedy Lane", one of their best works and which is my favourite too. By the other hand, I think there are only 2 reviews of it and none of a 5.0. And I really think it deserves a review of 5.0.
So, here they are my impressions about it and as usual your comments are very welcome.
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your approval rating impresses me greatly
never got round to this band, might give this record a spin
| | | Album Rating: 5.0
If you like great emotional albums in the vein of metal this is one of the champions, like the others I recommend too. Give a chance to it, man.
| | | Album Rating: 5.0
Auto pos, I'm close to 5 the album.
| | | Album Rating: 4.5
nice review man. What do you think about the RS albums?
| | | Album Rating: 5.0
@ ksoflas
I'm sure you can manage that. A great fan like you can see clearly the grandiosity of this album.
Thanks for the pos.
| | | Album Rating: 5.0
@ Mythodea
Thanks, man.
I'm not a great fan of those albums. But don't get me wrong. They're both very good, the second is better than the first, but they're far away of what we was used to with the band. They're very distant from their two masterpieces "The Perfect Element" an "Remedy Lane", they're very distant of their two first albums and they're also very distant from their most complex album "Be" and from their most controversial album "Scarsick". Still, I continue thinking that both must be listened together as a single work.
Anyway, I'm used to that Pain Of salvation is a very different band that follows their own path in a very special way. And it seems that with their new release they continue in the same direction.
Cheers.
| | | Album Rating: 4.5
Sober approach. I agree that the Road Salt era is about a completely different band, but damn, the emotions the two albums convey are so strong. Hits hard, man. I consider 5'ing them!
| | | Album Rating: 5.0
"the emotions the two albums convey are so strong"
But this isn't what happen on all their albums?
I can see your point of view. The albums are great with many references of some greatest bands and artists like Iron Butterfly, Jimmy Hendrix, Blue Oyster Cult and specially Led Zeppelin. I can see it very depth in music expressed with retro lyrics. I know that. I'm not a great fan of blues and both albums are deeply influenced by them. What can I do? What can I say? It's probably me. Who knows? Anyway, these are my feelings about their discography.
| | | Album Rating: 3.5
The only PoS I actually enjoy, great album
| | | Album Rating: 4.5
The more immediate approach of the two albums helps the message be put across without instrumental disruptions. There's a certain amount of emotion through all their discography, but on these two the emotion hits harder, and the music is more simplistic, thus more vivid.
But hey, that's just an opinion.
| | | Album Rating: 5.0
Thanks pollas.
| | | Album Rating: 5.0
@ Mythodea
Yeah man, I agree with you. That are just opinions. And after all we are talking about music, and music is a very personal thing that even can change with our occasional mood. Anyway, thanks for you share your opinions with me. Still, we are talking about a great band, one of my favourites in the genre.
| | | Album Rating: 5.0
I wish the Road Salt albums never existed.
| | | Album Rating: 5.0
At least not under the name of PoS.
Daniel could have a side project with this kind of sound and songwriting.
| | | Album Rating: 5.0
Bumped to classic, yeah.
| | | Album Rating: 5.0
@ ksoflas
I think you are too much harsh with both albums. They aren't as bad as that. Besides, Pain Of Salvation is almost a personal project of Daniel as we could see all over the years.
About the change of your rating, I couldn't agree more. "Remedy Lane" is really a classic. Great attitude, dude. Welcome to the club.
| | | Album Rating: 5.0
They seem bad in comparison with the band's classic albums.
| | | Album Rating: 5.0
Yeah, I can agree with that.
| | | Album Rating: 4.5
I came to digest, then to appreciate the Road Salt series. It's so much a virage that it doesnt sound like PoS at all, indeed. They are neat, bluesy song-oriented albums and there are in fact more of The Black Keys vibes injected into them. So that's why we have to try to separate these two albums from the rest of their discog, and we have to be open minded in order to appreciate them for what they are. In a more negative side, I would not be surprised if Hallgren and Hermansson would have left the band because of that virage Daniel has taken.
@e21, great 5'd review, man. I can see why so many people gave it a 5. There are so many gems on this album. It might be my favorite PoS album for it's variety and consistency. ''A Trace of Blood'', ''Undertow''and ''Beyond the Pale'' have to be my fave ones. If memory serves well, there is not a weak song on here. But once again, I'll have to relisten to it to see if my rating will remain the same.
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