PAIN OF SALVATION
The Perfect Element Pt I INSIDEOUT
Swedish prog-metallers’ millennial landmark revisited.
Everyone likes to think they’re immune from the influence of musical trends, and musicians are particularly prone to claiming they exist in a cultural vacuum. But the zeitgeist seeps into their creative juices more significantly than they might realise.
Listening back to the opening bars of this 20th anniversary reissue of Pain Of Salvation’s third album, it’s hard to miss the sensational sounds of 2000 resonating across it. Most strikingly are the traces of nu metal, whose rap-rock hybrid was sweeping all before it at the time. The fact that sound hasn’t aged gracefully (it was none too pretty at the time) perhaps makes the rap injections and electronic frills on Used and Idioglossia jar more noticeably than they did at the time. But while there are anachronistic moments on The Perfect Element, which this remastered version doesn’t disguise, POS’ enduring mastery of more timeless varieties of rock dramatics more than make up for them.