The Swedish rockers Pain Of Salvation again managed to surprise with yet another excellent new album. This time they please the progressive rock fan with a slightly more accessible album (to Pain Of Salvation standards that is) with which they present a familiar and popular theme (the present society) in a fresh and varied way. One of the first things you will notice while listening to Scarsick is the somewhat weaker contrast between the heavy and the softer tracks, a characteristic of the predecessor Be. The connection between the tracks seems stronger than before. As a result the band even gets away with a more experimental track like ‘Discofreak’, which is as catchy as the Scissor Sisters can be, but much more sophisticated and brilliantly integrated with the distinctive Pain Of Salvation sound. The disco beats and BeeGee influences are combined with solid drumming, rock vocals and delightful rhythms like if it were normal to do so. The track has a very natural feel; most other bands sound too forced when trying to incorporate references outside of the rock genre. If I’m completely honest, I must say that despite the more melodic approach, the high quality of Scarsick wasn’t obvious to me after just a few spins.

The diversity on the album is too great and the sound is so much different compared to the predecessor. Like almost all other great concept albums, I recommend you to play Scarsick a dozen of times and then put the album away for a couple of weeks. My experience is that you will definitely be hooked by the first time you’ll give the album another spin. Like Be it takes some time before the ideas of the musical mastermind Gildenlow start to become clear, but when they do, you will conclude that Scarsick might be the best Pain Of Salvation album yet. At the moment there are still some songs that seem to be slightly overshadowed by others. I love the aggression of the opening tracks, the experimental ‘America’ (familiar theme, yet with sophisticated banjo and slide guitars), ‘Discofreak’ and most of all the closing epic. I have no doubt that this will change in the near future. Scarsick will be a regular on my playlist. With 12:5 and Be, Pain Of Salvation drew my attention, with Scarsick they’ve made me a fan!