Customer Reviews

The Perfect Element Part 1

5 star:		(33)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The astounding thing about Swedish prog/metal whiz-kids Pain of Salvation is simple: You NEVER know what you are going to hear next. The Perfect Element is a crystal-clear example of their diversity. This was my third PoS purchase, behind Entropia and One Hour by the Concrete Lake. Let me say at the outset of this review, TPE is a radical departure from those aforementioned masterpieces.

After hearing this release, I quickly purchased Remedy Lane and the astounding 12:5, but looking at the entire PoS catalogue, TPE stands above all others as their crowning moment. Some have complained about the chunky/rap vocals on the opening track Used, some have bemoaned the fact that this release is not "proggy" enough.

I say, hrm. I have listened to this CD solid for a couple of months and can honestly say that I have yet to tire, and I continue to find wonder buried deep inside each and every song on the album. As far as I am concerned, and I know that I may be in the minority here, Daniel Gildenlow is one of the greatest vocalists to ever grace the music scene. There are moments when he lapses in operatic, saccharine-sweet mode, but this listener can only say that it adds to the quality of his vocal performances.

Musically I can honestly say that I believe PoS stand heads above the rest. Daniel Gildenlow is an amazing lyricist, as well as being a stylish guitarist. From the stunning "In the Flesh," which I feel is their finest recording, to the haunting "Ashes," and the phenomenal "Idioglossia," this album is a must have title.

HIGHLY recommended.

Pain of Salvation is one of progressive metal's most promising bands. While I consider myself a pretty big fan, I think The Perfect Element (Part I) is their only album that deserves five stars. Entropia was extremely original and mostly solid, but much the album's experimentation was too esoteric for its own good. One Hour By The Concrete Lake was an improvement, with better songs overall, but it was more straightforward progressive metal and it lacked the striking originality of Entropia. Clearly, a balance had to be achieved.

With The Perfect Element, PoS has refined their sound, synthesizing the remarkable uniqueness of Entropia and the stronger songcraft of One Hour. Gone are the awkward herky-jerky musical passages, the needlessly embellished vocals, and turgid lyrics. Here, everything works. No, it's not perfect. But it's damn good.

The band's nature is very eclectic, for they change musical bearing unpredictably. The first tract, "Used," best exemplifies this. It begins with the harrowing coupling of heavy guitars and synths, with vocalist Daniel Gildenlow's dark, fierce intonations. With the chorus, the song undergoes a complete change as it suddenly shifts into a harmonious melody with sharply contrasting "lighter" vocals. (Sound familiar, PoS fans? It's like "!" from Entropia, but better.) "Used" is a pretty extreme example, for the rest of the album is more cohesive from song to song, but the fundaments of this versatile approach remain intact. For those who are new to PoS, this might sound almost annoying. Let me aver that the polarizing course of the music is one of its greatest merits. Why? Because the they does it incredibly well. When a band can blend so many musical ideas so seamlessly and naturally, it's definitely stunning.

More so than any other Pain of Salvation record, this one has the most equal balance of strident heaviness and balladry. Soft piano leads, clean electric and acoustic guitars are used as often as heavy guitar riffery. This dichotomy may irk those who favor the aggression to ballads, but this album is best thought of as a whole (it is a concept album, after all). In that respect, the balanced qualities work well.

Daniel Gildenlow's vocals have improved much since One Hour By The Concrete Lake. He still reveals some weaknesses in the higher octaves, but he seems to have a better understanding of his strengths and weaknesses. He has also improved his lyricism. On previous albums they were almost silly in their gaudiness, but now they are just plain good. The poetic aptitude he shows in conveying this deeply emotional story about childhood is markedly impressive. As for the concept itself, it is extremely obscure, but this ensures that a lot of time will be spent unraveling this intricate story. For those listeners who don't care much about the lyrics, the album can be enjoyed simply by riding on the dynamic musical waves...

The album's only fault is its production. PoS' sound contains myriad textures, many of which are difficult to dissect because the production splatters everything into a blob of keyboards and guitars. The guitar tone often makes it difficult to distinguish individual notes. When Gildenlow sings softy with a dense background of instrumentation, his words can be unintelligible. Similarly, when multiple vocal lines are concurrently sung, making out individual words his needlessly hard. The production is imperfect, for certain, but in other ways the band has never sounded better. The keyboards in particular sound stronger, and the crunching guitars are more raucous, and the vocals are strikingly visceral.

In the end, the production doesn't detract from the listening experience too much, because it is so strong on the whole. Hopefully, The Perfect Element Part II will retain all of this one's merits and tweak the production.

(Final note: If you see this in a store, don't get apprehensive about the band's photo on the back. Sure, they look like Korn or some other "nu metal" band, but the looks are where the similarities end. Enjoy!)

Last Christmas, my family decided to circulate a sort of wish list around to everybody via email on the premise that it's far easier to figure out what you want as opposed to what ten other people want. However, I was in a peculiar location at the time where I'd have been unable to store just about anything that anybody might have sent me, so I was ready to spare my family the trouble altogether. Then, I got to thinking about how excellent an opportunity this could be to trick my closest and most beloved people on the planet into listening to some music of my choosing.

You see, I would love to share much of the music that I listen to with as many other people as I can. Unfortunately, the type of person who will tolerate what I listen to in any sincere fashion is a very rare find. This makes me sad - not because I think everybody should listen to what I listen to, but because it pains me to see one of the wonders of the world fall away into relative obscurity, leaving only a diluted shell of itself for people to listen to and say, "This would make good background noise for (insert activity here)".

I should say that nobody in my family outside of myself considers music to be a very significant part of their lives... so why did I ask a bunch of people to listen to a bunch of music that they probably wouldn't even enjoy? Well, my purpose wasn't to make any of them like it, but something very different.

So, of all the bands I could have employed in my evil scheme - why Pain of Salvation? This band, and more specifically this album, means a lot to me. It also means a lot to me to have people so close to me experience something that I personally hold so dear. And so, here we are.

This Swedish group is home to Daniel Gildenlow - lyricist, vocalist, and primary songwriter. This man is possibly my most revered in all of music. Every album this band has released is a concept album - a concept album is an album which is unified from start to finish by a single theme or pre-conceived story, with this theme or story being the "concept". While Pain of Salvation is certainly not the only band out there to write concept albums, they certainly do write some of the more staggering ones, thanks to Daniel. From what I understand, he has always been very interested in the dirty underbelly of politics, social injustice, environmental devastation, and many other wrong doings that are going on around the world... and he has an uncanny ability to take these concepts, craft an interesting conceptual framework around them, build the world around that framework, arrange the musical journey through that world, and deliver it all with unmatched integrity, complexity, intelligence, and passion. To this day, they have written five such albums, with themes ranging between the individual, society, war, environment, existence, humanity, et al.

On their third, The Perfect Element I, Daniel follows the lives of a boy and a girl in the streets of a fictional place known as Idioglossia. Both the boy and girl are growing up with something missing in their lives, and the way they choose to fill these empty spaces is quite a self-destructive and jarring journey through the most depraved recesses of society. However, the album isn't just a depressing story about two lost children... it covers many themes, including: childhood, adolescence, violence, sexuality, tragedy and loss, relationships between the individual and his society, states of the human mind and soul, and the exploration of emotional extremes (including love, pain, anger, shame, regret...), among other things. In Daniel's own words, this is a story about two people fighting against the wounds inflicted upon them by their past, about love as a path to reconciliation, and about a society that introduces various "malfunctions" into a few people and then fights to exclude them as they become dangers to this same society. Daniel has been exploring people in the backside of society ever since their first album, Entropia, but all of that and more is approached far more boldly here. The story is split up into three chapters - "As These Two Desolate Worlds Collide", "It All Catches Up On You When You Slow Down", and "Far Beyond the Point of No Return" - with each chapter consisting of four tracks.

Of course, fancy shmancy concepts are nothing without an appropriate presentation. Fortunately, Daniel's vocal delivery is filled with a sense of raw emotion, power, and honesty that I have not heard from any other. Not only is he very intelligent and a wonderful lyricist, but he is also a brilliant vocalist. His voice is extremely dynamic (and sometimes admittedly over-dramatic), ranging from the deepest and darkest intonations to Broadway-worthy soaring. He has stated in many interviews that he believes progressive metal to be a fairly stale thing when it comes to vocals, what with guys constantly hanging around the upper registers and worrying more about over-extended histrionics than relaying any kind of emotion... and so he tries to avoid this very real trend. The results are often fascinating. He is also very passionate and thus it is easy to empathize with what he is saying. In fact, I get the sense that the entire band greatly desires the listener to empathize with the events that are being portrayed by the lyrics and to really feel what Daniel is feeling as he sings. They truly want you to understand the messages that they are trying to get across with their music.

That brings me to something very important - the impact that this album, or really any Pain of Salvation album, has on the listener is multiplied ten-fold if the listener knows what is being said. Listening to Daniel sing with soothing elegance over a tranquil piano line is one thing, listening to his brooding voice in pain and agony on top of a turbulent musical collage is another... but when you add the last piece of the puzzle (that being the lyrics), everything becomes so much more powerful. It's like suddenly all the disjointed musical discordance and theatrical vocal performances fall into perfect context. For this reason, it's imperative that you find a way to follow the words... either read them beforehand, read them while listening (which might detract from the listening part), or listen once, read, and then listen again... or something. It also should be noted that, since these guys are Swedish, there's the occasional grammatical inconsistency. However, all in all, it's hard to tell that Daniel even has an accent, and whatever errors there may be in the writing do not detract from the cohesion in the slightest - and it also makes you think, or at least it makes me think, what Daniel could have done with all this stuff if English was his native language.

The question you're probably asking now is what's going on here musically? Well, I could throw out some idioms typical of progressive metal - equal parts driving metal, acoustic passages, epic arrangements, cinema-scopic buildups, rhythmic complexity, so on and so forth. While those statements may describe what's going on here on a superficial level, they don't really capture the essence of the thing. Also, there's little to no instrumental over-indulgence to be found here. The guys can play with the best of them, but all displays of technical proficiency which are found on this album are infused into the arrangements, which are built entirely to serve the concept. In that aspect alone, they are unique among their peers.

"Used" kicks off with splashes of metallic chords on top of a driving drum pattern, before dropping off into a pulsing rhythm with Daniel ranting in a dark and hoarse whisper - "I am the unclean - the black drop at the bottom of your cup - you'd better drink or throw me up 'cause I'm on your lip and tongue - God! - I'm not yours as much as you are mine - so let me in to be your lung - just breathe me deep and take another sip - so still - a taste so sweet but so bitter the kill! - still on your lip, you are so close - I'll let you come between my legs, you are closer death than sun - and I'm not your daughter as much as you're my son - I'll let you come - in my mouth, on your lip - so ready and thirsty for the next sip - you let me in, I let you come - I'd never let you down - you let me win, I'll let you drown!" The last is delivered with a powerful roar as various vocal lines coalesce on top of each other, and then the darkness gives way to make room for an uplifting passage that's in striking opposition to what came only moments before - and to what will come only moments after. Later down the line, the song is broken by an almost bluesy guitar solo, and proceeds to build momentum and tension before exploding into a powerful storm of unbridled emotion.

In fear of falling into a track-by-track description that I was originally intending to avoid, I'll just say that there aren't really any formulas in use here, but if I had to depict a kind of connecting musical theme from song to song, it would be that epic buildup of tension and consequent cathartic release in the form of an emotional storm that, if nothing else, is often tear jerking. The Perfect Element I is an album driven by emotion and dynamics on a level beyond any other album I have ever heard in this genre.

I do have to say a few things about several of the tracks here, though -

"In the Flesh" is a huge teaser. A repetitive and pleasant arrangement of clean guitars and soft drums throughout the first few minutes of this song do a good job of putting you in the "mood", so to speak. When the band finally does come through in force, though, the wait will have been more than worth it. Very powerful music over the last several minutes, with Daniel's massively moving two-sided narration of an encounter between two characters that's guaranteed to leave a lasting impression. The transition into the next song is masterful, with a touching piano and acoustic guitar arrangement.

"Idioglossia" IS progressive metal. This is what it's all about. The song goes through so many movements, so many changes, and makes such excellent use of dynamics. The drum work especially throughout all eight and a half minutes of this song is so enveloping. The true beauty of this song, though, is the way it works with the agony that Daniel attempts to portray within his characters. You can feel what Daniel is saying through the music that his bandmates are playing. The music conveys the emotions being expressed with such utter brilliance that one almost gets the impression that this music wasn't actually arranged, but that it simply came to be in a free-flowing musical arena where each member's ideas seamlessly intertwined with the rest to create this most natural and turbulent collage. The pathos of it all is unreal.

"Her Voices", or more specifically the latter half of the song, features a long instrumental passage with some very interesting drumming, folky guitar melodies, and a truly epic closing sequence filled with violins, soaring pianos, dense guitars, layered background vocals that reach for the sky, and Daniel singing on top of it all with that emphatic voice of his. Powerful, indeed.

"Reconciliation". I really only have one thing to point out about this song - and that's the thing that Daniel does from 3:35 to around 3:48. Holy crap. That shouldn't be possible.

"The Perfect Element". This is it. The title track and also the album closer. Right from the beginning the melodies deliver a sort of somber tranquility... quiet and retrospective, yet sad and desolate. Around mid-way through the song, the band drops out to leave a single acoustic guitar playing through several arpeggiated chords. A second guitar joins in shortly, overlaying a sorrow-filled but strangely uplifting melody before both guitars are joined by the remainder of the band, with a violin adding to the atmosphere. Daniel is at his emotional peak here, and it is unbelievable. With every word he sings, it's as if he's feeling what his characters are feeling. You can almost see the tears falling from his eyes as his voice builds and builds - "Once he had forests and mountains that were only his, listening to him - Once he would run through the summer days, catching memories for ages to come - Now he is dressing this naked floor - with his flesh and blood - while time passes by - His trade of pain might just have lead him to deal with consequence - for some change as time passes by!" His voice strains here as he holds the word, on the verge of breaking, and it's perfect. So perfect that when he finally does release it, you realize that you never even noticed the band that had long since come in behind him. A brief, yet striking and monumental instrumental passage ensues, and then the guys drop into a dense yet somewhat airy wall of sound that leads into the closing passage, which consists of an interesting, tribal drum progression that fades into the wind with an inquisitive Daniel angrily chanting "Is this more than you want?".

The end.

As far as I'm concerned, this album has only one fault - and that's the production. Due to the nature of the music here and its tendency to build and climax into dense walls of sound, instrument separation should have been a very important concern. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a significant oversight. When the band starts layering instruments, everything tends to turn into a mash of guitars and cymbals, making it a bit hard to distinguish guitars from other guitars, guitars from keyboards, individual notes and chords, and other such nuances. When the band starts layering vocals, it gets even worse. This is most blatantly displayed on "Her Voices", towards the end, where you can't really understand what either Daniel or the background vocalists are singing because it all turns into one big blob of sound. The production is flawed, but it isn't "horrible"... for the most part things are pretty clear, intelligible, and well defined. It's only when the band is at their most dense that the imperfections shine through.

In retrospect, never in my life could I have imagined that the distinction of my "favorite" album would have been so easy to make, but here it is.

The Perfect Element I.

The perfect album.

Bring on Part II.

A few years ago, I was planning to attend a Dream Theater concert in Vancouver, Canada. Dream Theater got me into progressive music - my favorite band, at the time. But strangely, some obscure Swedish band was opening for them named Pain of Salvation.

Skip forward some years, and let me tell you that The Perfect Element Pt. I is my absolute favorite album of all time. I don't have places for Favorites #2 - #10, but I know what #1 is. Yes, it's that good.

Daniel Gildenlow is a rediculously talented person. Nobody can sing like he does. He can play guitar with his own unique style. He expresses emotion that simply nobody else does. Whats more, his lyrics are unparalleled.

What can I say about this album? This is 72 minutes of progressive metal. 12 tracks. You have everything - some pure metal, some rock, some ballads, and yes, even a touch of rap-esque vocals.

The songs flow into one another so that you can barely tell the tracks had changed, and this is a good thing. Because I don't see twelve tracks here. I see one album. One absolutely amazing album, with many high points and climaxes and no flaws.

Pain of Salvation's newest studio album, Be, is amazing as well, and in my top 5. But The Perfect Element gets the kudos for being the absolute best album I have ever heard. And if you haven't heard it yet, you can't disagree.

Progressive metal was blessed when Pain of Salvation entered the limelight. On their third studio album, Daniel Gildenlow and company have mastered the art of the morose-slash-hopeful song. Each piece is ripe with despair without departing from the melodies that keep the album alive. A concept album whose themes revolve around childhood and growing up, The Perfect Element I never reaches a significant level of intensity to be considered "metal" (in the broadest sense of the word).

The most intense song on the album, the harrowing and wonderful "Idioglossia" remains reasonably accessible throughout it's 8-minute run. As a concept album it is also very successful, aided by a cohesive conceptual theme, and recurring musical lines - "Reconciliation" is, in a nutshell, "Morning on Earth" on steroids. The guitars range from simple chord arrangements to stunning solos, always eerie and unsettling. The stand-out characteristic of this album, however, is Gildenlow's vocal range. It is difficult to believe that the intimate, almost womanly voice in "Song for the Innocent" can conjure the deep, angry grunts in "Idioglossia".

Musically, the album is neither too spontaneous nor easily predictable. Dark throughout (save certain idyllic songs) and often disturbing both lyrically and musically, the album is as beautiful as it is unnerving. The standout track, "Her Voices" has absolutely everything: memorable choruses, an amazing progressive middle-part, and a triumphant choir of voices (and a violin) bringing the song to its brilliant end. From the lyrics to "Used", reminiscent of a raving sex-offender; to those of "Ashes", whose visual portrayal of personified filth is unmatched; to the heavenly violins in "Morning on Earth", the album showcases the beauty in despair. With unexpected tempos, impressive guitar-work, a soaring voice and a dark, brooding theme, Gildenlow has crafted a seductively disturbing and disturbingly seductive album.

See also: Pain of Salvation - Remedy Lane, Arena - Contagion

Firstly, I'll get the bad things out of the way, so as not to leave a bad taste in my mouth after reviewing such a fine piece of work.

In an ambitious project like TPE1, there is always difficulties with consistency. For all their excellence, Pain Of Salvation (or should I say, Daniel Gildenlow) are not immune to this. Towards the end of the album, notably 'Song For The Innocent' and 'Falling', this album loses alot of gas. Fortunately 'The Perfect Element' picks things up and the album ends on a high. No doubt, much of this is due to the length of the album, as it is quite an effort to sit and really listen to 72 minutes of music as dense as this (rewarding as it may be).

Pain Of Salvation also have the tendency that plagues just about all ostentatious, 'intelligent' metal bands. The tendency to over-compose. For all the inspiration in repeating certain themes throughout the album, there are too many passages which are totally unnecessary. In fact, the way in which the melodic themes are dealt with are quite amateurish. They are performed, then left to a later time. There is very little development, if any at all. It shows a lack of craftsmanship, although I'd bet that Gildenlow will rectify this sooner rather than later. The main problem is that the replacement of the development of themes is too much new material. It becomes too difficult to digest so much, and emotional contact is lost with the music. Pain Of Salvation need to learn how to construct these 5 to 10 minute songs using a minimum of ideas, not simply throwing things one after the other, and then saying 'look we're smart, we'll throw in this recurring theme here and there'. It's a sign of a lazy composer. The music just ends up being too episodic for it's own good.

My other main gripe with this album, and all the bands work for that matter, is Daniel Gildenlow's vocals. He is a very talented singer, but I just wish he would refrain from all his 'oooh's and 'whoa's and excessive wailing all the time. This faux-pas dramaticism just doesn't cut it if you want your music to be taken seriously. Ultimately it just sounds silly. But really, this is purely my own taste. I know other people like this kind of thing, so...

But now to the good things. And unfortunately, my inherently critical nature prevents me from saying as much about the album's good aspects as it's bad. Which is totally unfair given that the good things totally outweigh the bad. Oh well. At least I have mentioned that the content of my discourse is not in proportion to the content of good and bad within the music.

Firstly, the music is densely composed. Layer upon layer of guitar, rhythm batter, keys/piano, and vocals. It reveals something new each listen, for many listens after the first. It is quite involving.

Secondly, there is a great sensitivity to the all the episodic swerves and the emotion conveyed. It is all very purposeful and passionate, and performed with great vigour. An excellent command of different musical textures and harmonic language is shown in the display of the different emotions.

Thirdly, the lyrics are quite good. Not brilliant, but far from the mediocre drivel that is spread these days.

In short, a great album, that shows the best of progressive rock/metal. It's probably worth 4 and a half stars, but I couldn't round up to a 5. Pain Of Salvation still have too many problems to be perfect, or that close to. Still, definitely a highly recommended purchase to those after intelligent, moving music. Great stuff.

With a name like Pain of Salvation, you might envision this band to be a hardcore death metal outfit. Have a seat and pour yourself a your beverage of choice because instead of songs about death and corruption, this album contains songs about death and corruption. Well, it's not quite like that. Poised to take over the crown of progressive metal from such heavyweight bands as Dream Theater and Queensryche, Pain of Salvation follows up their critically acclaimed One Hour By the Concrete Lake with The Perfect Element, disc one in a two part saga that follows two broken individuals, their losses, problems, and eventual violence. Stylistically POS combines a metal edge with diverse and melodic arrangements, utilizing aspects of jazz-fusion and classical music structures. At this point I admit that this all sounds a bit heady, but when it gets down to it, these boys can rock and not just in cold technical sense. The music is so well written and accessible that the melodies capture you even on first listen through this 72-minute opus. It's only after repeated listens that you detect the complex arrangements and repeated motifs that tie the album together into more of a journey, a complete book whose chapters are songs that melt seamlessly into each other. While at times the music gets a bit grandiose and the vocalist a bit melodramatic, the breadth of emotions and musical styles covered on this album are breathtaking and more than make up for any overcomings.

"Used" introduces the main characters with pounding poly-rhythms and harsh, rap-like vocals similar to Faith No More that break into a very melodic chorus. This bright chorus unfortunately happens quite a bit in the early half of the album but not so much that it distracts or becomes a cliché of itself. Acoustic guitars and piano contrast with powerful surges on "Ashes", creating a haunting and dark atmosphere set amongst whispered vocals of "This pain will never end/ These scars will never mend." "Morning on Earth" brings a calm to the storm, fully utilizing the "music box" musical theme that runs throughout this project. The album ends with the title track, a ten-minute epic that embraces the best of the previous tracks in terms of composition and atmosphere, summing up the album with fits of rage and rest. Throughout every song, astounding musicianship serves the songs instead of the other way around. Fans of Queensryche and intelligent rock owe it to themselves to check out this latest offering from Pain of Salvation.

I'm so glad "The Perfect Element" is only the first part of a planned 2 CD project! This CD has got to be THE most amazing work of art I have ever listened! Atmospherically, it even beats Dreamtheater's "Metropolis 2"! If you are a prog-rock fan, you probably know that progressive albums need to be heard a few times before you realize how good they are. This is no exception.... This music will get to you and never let go! Throughout 12 songs, Pain of Salvation manages to take us on a ride like none other. It displays a lot of emotion through these songs, with classic progressive songwriting (You'll be hearing some themes and choruses on more than one song). I wanted to tell you my favorite track (As "Dance of Eternity" is for Dreamtheater's "Metropolis 2") but I cant take a pick from this display of musical genius. One thing I must admit... Pain of Salvation's lead singer leaves every other progressive singer begging for mercy. This guy is just too good... I must wonder what would Dreamtheater sound like with a singer like this? The bottom line: Buy this NOW and enjoy an experience like none other.

How a band can continually produce album after album of moving truly progessive music such as Pain of Salvation escapes me. If you are into progessive music at all, pick up one of Pain of Salvation's albums.

For those of you who dig Prog-Rock more, I reccomend starting with "One Hour By The Concrete Lake". For those of you who enjoy prog-metal more, try "Entropia". This doesn't mean that the Perfect Element is the worst of the three, simply that it is the deepest and hardest to understand if you don't already enjoy Pain of Salvation.

Pain of Salvation is the next wave of progressive music. If you miss out on them, you miss out on the future of progressive music.

In short: BUY ME

Here lately, Pain of Salvation's music has just completely consumed my life, and as a result, I've had a major change of heart on my outlook on them. So, I'm having to re-review everything to repent my sins (hehe).

Every PoS album has its own unique sound to it, and this one here is just pure epic beauty. Musically, I would say that "Entropia" is my favorite of theirs, but this has their most beautiful melodies bar none. "Her Voices", "Morning on Earth", "Dedication", and "Song for the Innocent" are just breath-takingly beautiful. There's still plenty of diversity here though, with the crushing rapmetal-tinged "Used", the epic progginess of "Idioglossia", and the dark and menacing "Ashes". "King of Loss" is a song that took a while to grow on me, but it's a killer epic, full of dynamics. The title track may seem uniformly slow at first, but it'll sink in after a few listens. It's hard to believe it's over 10 minutes long, because it seems like only half that.

Daniel Gildenlow's vocals can seem a bit over the top at first, which may initially turn some off (me included), but given time, his brilliance will shine through. He's got amazing range, and unreal melodic tone. You'd be hard-pressed to find a better vocal performance than the one here, from a technical or emotional standpoint.

This is beautifully crafted and brilliant progressive music. If you don't like it first, please don't give up. If I had, I'd have missed out on what is easily one of the finest bands out there. Buy this, and be blown away.