Review Summary: A weak album that smacks of complacency
I didn't go into this album with high expectation. Restoring Force was a very average album with a handful of highlights and I had a feeling that this album would begin to stray towards the reliance on clean vocals that featured on the Deluxe version of Restoring Force.
However, when I heard Pain for the first time I had some hope that this album could be heading back to the classic Of Mice and Men sound from The Flood. I waited a few days before listening to the album in full and my hopes of a heavy album were quickly crushed.
This album is incredibly confusing, it's almost like the band had no idea what type of record they were trying to make. The album zig zags between genres from track to track. I'm sceptical about calling this a metal album because to be honest I'm not sure what this album is supposed to be.
The big shock and new innovative idea on this album is Austin Carlile's clean vocals, this seems to become the latest trend for screamers to begin singing clean (Oli Sykes and Michael Bohn to name two other). On this record Austin's clean vocals are very obviously auto-tuned and on tracks such as 'Like a Ghost' it begins to sound a little ridiculous. The only tracks I enjoyed on this album which featured Austin singing were 'Real' and 'Away' which were two of very few highlights on this record.
The instrumentals and the lyrics are also left lacking on this record. The guitars feel lazy and lack innervation, 'Pain' features the same riff throughout. The band have also relied heavily on electronics to fill spaces, which again smacks of laziness and complacency.
The lyrics are empty and meaningless on many of the songs. On 'The Lie' (admittedly the heaviest track on the album), it feels like Austin is trying to deliver a great social message, but it doesn't connect with the listener and I'd argue 'Antivist' by Bring Me The Horizon delivers the same message in a much greater way.
'Real', 'Away' and 'Contagious' are the highlights from a very poor album which lacks heart and soul. Away delivers the most emotion but the interlude track '+' sets the mood for this.
The other interlude track '-' sums this album up, pointless, meaningless and not really sure why it's been done.
