Pain, Rebirth

Pain, Rebirth (Stockholm-1999)

Remember Napster? This album for quite some time was only available in Sweden and the reason I got this was due to Napster. Back then you could talk to the people you shared music with. Got chatting to a death metal fan from Sweden who recommended this to me. So downloaded it (Well it was free).

A bit of background here as it is important. Peter Tägtgren was at the time well known within metal fans as the leader of death metal band Hypocrisy he was also used many times by bands as a producer. His own studio was used for many classic metal albums, his own band were still going but his desire to make other music was so strong this album came about. Well it is his second under the name Pain. All writing/instruments are by his so it really is as solo as you can ever get. It was nothing but a side project but the album had a two hit singles in Sweden. Not sure if that was ever expected as the deal was simply kept to Sweden, this is where Napster came in to a music fans help. Import copies were very expensive back then. So I only ever had this on MP3 till a few years ago. 

The hit singles in "On and On" and "End of the Line" are so much fun and a real mix of styles. industrial and rock are mixed well but the ending sound is very surprising, strangely it feels more like pop music. Not so far away than what could be in the dance clubs. It can get you dancing much like "On and On" as the music is very repetitive but the vocals are all clean. As I say Peter was a death metal vocalist so a real change of style for him. But it all works. "End of The Line" has some nice loops and guitar samples that really show how good he is in the studio. Again the vocals help keep a tune and the ears are interested.

One of the songs I always loved was "Crashed" an all out rock track but it has keyboards as the lead tune at the intro but still feels very rocking. The guitars on this album are there but with little distortion it helps the overall sound balance out and I think that is why many fans of dance music took notice. "Suicide Machine" is another song I like, a little bit heavier again but the electronic side is obvious, more mixing of the guitars and samples. It really should not work but you find yourself singing along with it.

One track that mixes the guitars into what I could only say is a beat is "Parallel to Ecstasy" it is very interesting as the riff side of the guitar sound feels like it is made faster and looped to feel like a dance beat but it is a distorted guitar. Great stuff, I could see this all being released in the UK as a white label promo (white label is where no info is on the disc making DJ/radio listen) and getting many people interested.

I really do wonder what would have happened if this was put out with a big label as at the time Stockholm Records was not as big as it was. More so outside of Sweden. Perfect label would have been Deconstruction. Give this a go it was listed at the time as industrial/electronic rock but it really is more than that. Very catchy I remember friends into dance music asking me for a copy of this in 99. Always loved how they were enjoying it so much but always adamant they don't like rock music.

Now easily available it has had many reprints so the cover may well be different.

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