PAIN, are back again with a brand new album called “Coming Home”. Five years have passed, since the release of “You Only Live Twice” album and PETER TÄGTGREN can not run out of imagination and creativity as it seems. Given his twelve HYPOCRISY albums and solo work with Lindemann of RAMMSTEIN. Ten new songs are on the table, but this time with a rather different sound, in comparison with what we have been expecting from PAIN all these years. From Peter’s point of view, as he mentioned in his own words,” Musically, the album is a development of where Pain and Lindemann left off; more experimental than what I’ve ever done before.”
From the starting point of the album, “Designed to piss you off” you can easily confirm Peter’s statement, as an ambient western guitar riff already makes you wonder, if this is an actual PAIN song. Chorus kicks in with such a hooking melody forcing you, in a way, to sing along. The bridge is an elegant mix of the opening guitar riff with epic strings and Peter’s vocals, which really got me excited for the rest of the album. “Call Me” is the one coming next and the intro is a small epic metal gem. A brief heavy metal guitar riff and then, a heroic rousing riff consisting solely of strings. The same epic tone accompanies us in the chorus part, rendering the song to a true mosh-pit item. During the second verse of “Call Me”, you realize that this is not Peter’s voice. That’s because he decided to collaborate with Joakim Brodén of SABATON, which explains the feeling pretty well. Another great song follows up, “A Wannabe”, transiting us smoothly with the same guitar tone, combined with catchy string melodies. During the song, you can’t miss the orchestral bridge which indicates, that if Peter ever wanted to get into the symphonic or epic metal scene, he would definitely kick some ass. The rest of the album continues on the same pattern: nice riffs; catchy choruses; bridges after the second chorus, but nothing more than that, with the exception of “Final Crusade” which had to offer a pretty brutal bridge. Following this exact pattern, is one of the reasons that made this whole album repetitive after the “Pain in the ass” track. It is worth mentioning as well, that Peter focused on his clean vocals this time, with the small exception of the same “Final Crusade” bridge, which was filled with some inhale growls.
Taking into consideration the lyrics on each song, overall the whole album is a letdown. Good old pain, with silly and dumb lyrics like “Designed to piss you off” and “Natural Born idiot” with the brilliant phrase: “I don’t wanna hear you anymore, IQ:0,84″. The track “A wannabe” tried really hard to make a difference, but the fact that it was followed by “Pain in the ass” (and you know what’s the subject behind the song) does not give much credit to the meaning behind the words. However, PAIN were never about the lyrics, so much as they were about their music and the rousing feeling that they offer.
Overall, I found the album pretty interesting musically. Atmospheric and ambient in the beginning, loud and brutal across the last songs. The epic orchestral tone combined with the hard riffs and the classic choruses, make this album one of Peter’s greatest works, so far. Unfortunately, they did not manage to keep the excitement alive throughout the end, as it was really repetitive from one point and on. Concerning the lyrics, they didn’t change much in style and at this point I don’t think anyone can judge them about that, but in the end, they were not nearly close to how good the music was. I had a great time listening to this album and I certainly believe I will definitely listen to some of the songs, in the future.
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