Pain of Salvation
Falling Home

The band name of this band, is it referring to the fact that one day, sometime in the future, we will receive salvation by an excellent album? Because this band is generally a case of what could have been, they show great potential, musicianships, glimpses of genius in their song writing but they never really seem to tie it all together into something great, hence I think that they are generally a pain. The closest they have ever gotten is the 2002 Remedy Lane album which I think was a great album with great ideas and just moderately overworked compared with much overworked which most of their albums are. They are generally so overworked that they end up flat and uninteresting, most of the time quite dull, like the Roadsalt duo for instance, I thought the first was decent enough when I reviewed it but when hearing it lately I think I overrated it at four points. This time they come with a perfect sequel to the acoustic live album 12:5 which I made a mockery of when reviewing it in a printed mag, it was a dreadful showcase of nothingness. Fortunately I had not read the press info before starting to write this review, after having listened to the album several times.

It was supposed to be a recording of a show that was made 2012 in Germany, they got the surprising question to do an acoustic live show back then and thought it was a great idea to record this show in order to keep the fans occupied while they overworked their next studio album into something so bland that a grey swedish summer day is more interesting. But things didn’t turn out the way they liked as they failed to record the show and recorded live in the rehearsal room instead which is more or less the same as that venue usually has as many visitors as the normal following of Pain of Salvation anyway. This was however not as simple as they first thought, Gildenlöw states that they could just as well have made a studio album instead, albeit not one as overworked as theirs usually are. But the idea was not to be dropped as they felt they had some unfinished business since 12:5, such as the general quality and the ridiculousness of the thing and they needed to make the album and they did.

An acoustic showing of several old songs by the band but a cover by Dio’s Holy Diver and Lou Reed’s Perfect Day spices it up a bit and the title track is a new song by Pain of Salvation so lo and behold you get three new songs on this album, which is at least better than most live stuff. I think this album is as you could expect from these guys, low key, acoustic, low tempo, decent variation a bit of a jazzy feel to many of the songs. No surprises really, except maybe one. Well produced and well performed and I think that no one can really complain about the quality of the production, maybe it is a bit too much though and it should have been a bit more spontaneous to make it slightly more interesting and dynamic. Overall though, I would call it a quality production.

But the songs leave a bit more to ask for really as the album feels somewhat bland, tired and not quite interesting enough to really catch your attention. The only song that makes you stop in your stride and take notice is the Dio Cover Holy Diver that impresses with a jazzy feel albeit I would call it more of a cool idea than a good one. The album as a whole feels more like something to be used in an elevator or a store as background music to chase away the silence and prevent your mind from using all its power to think. As such it is good and I think it is a decent album to have on when doing tasks that requires a bit more attention as it is music that is easy-listening and not particularly demanding to listen to.

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