The Perfect Element

Again and again continuing the pain of salvation marathon with the break-through album The perfect element part 1.

Again, a strong concept at first, the lives of two children (one male one female) who have been abused as children and how they meet and deal with thisn as dysfunctional people.
So of course it is not a very joyful concept and the music, where PoS finally gets its style as a syncopic, multi vocal progressive metal, really helps gets in the mood of the heavy oriented and numerous lyrics that course through the (as usual) beautifully design booklet. (I must stress that the physical CD is as much part of the concept as the rest of the lyrics and music-all supervised by Daniel Gildenlöw)

The album as a strong debut with the songs used, in the flesh and of course ever favorite dark and gloomy ashes before hitting a small ventre-mou in the middle of the album before the dark finale.
Even if all the songs are not up to the standard of the blessed trilogy that starts the record, the overall quality of the album made it possible to PoS to finally break and get known to -if not the world- at least the progressive and metal music world, what some in the old days could have called a chef d'oeuvre. Maybe not as perfect as the said element but really of notice.

Definitly worth checking out.

One Hour By the Concrete Lake

Continuing the pain of salvation extravaganza, with their second album, the also conceptual One Hour by the Concrete Lake.



First as always the concept : A man working in a weapon factory starts questionning the impact of his work (duh) on the world, travels and sees the disaster made by his guns and the big machine (industrial capitalism as its best) on his fellow men and the nature, ending his trip by the lake Karachay, a nuclear dump that was sealed with concrete and which is one of the most radioactive place on earth... one hour by it and a adult get a lethal dose of radiation....

Musically, with the arrival of johann Hallgren, PoS continue its venture in prog metal but in a less metal way with many syncopic rythms and voice modulations, chorus, chants and such. Daniel Gildenlow makes even the band sounds a bit like Enchant on some tracks and the album flows seamslessy but without a lot of high peaks.

Through its theme and music, 1HbtCL is still an album coming out of youth. the theme is mature yet as a lot of naïveté in it and the music still is searching itself a bit... no wonder the breakthrough would be made with teh next one...but yet a nice album with a strong human and ecological concept that helps define the concerns of the band leader.