Search - Pain of Salvation :: One Hour By The Concrete Lake

This is the album you need to start your Pain Of Salvation c

R. Gorham | 02/24/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"THE BAND: Daniel Gildenlow (lead vocals, guitar), John Hallgren (guitar), Johan Langell (drums), Kristoffer Gildenlow (bass), Fredrik Hermansson (keyboards). A product of Sweden.



THE DISC: (1999) 11 tracks clocking in at approximately 59 minutes. Included with the disc is a 14-page booklet containing song credits, song lyrics, band pictures, thank you's and a brief description behind the meaning of the album ("Concrete Lake" refers to Lake Karachay in the Soviet Union - filled in with concrete due to extreme radioactivity levels... and one hour even remotely near it could kill you). Recorded at Roasting House Recording Studio in Malmo, Sweden. Label - Inside/Out Music.



COMMENTS: There's a plethera of music that hails from Sweden. Old music from Abba still finds it's ways on to certain radio stations. Newer groups like Roxette, Cardigans, Ace Of Base, and rockers Drain STH are here for an album or two and then quickly disappear. There are some genuine metal outfits that lean toward the extreme metal side... in the likes of In Flames, Entombed, Opeth, Dismember, etc. However, this is my first experience finding and listening to a progressive rock band from the same place as all the above mentioned groups. As soon as I found this one, I quickly bought "Entropia" (their 1st album, and a Japan only release until 1999 when they released it globally)... which is good, but by no means classic material. I also picked up "Perfect Element" (2000), "Remedy Lane" (2002), and "Be" (2004)... and with that being said - "One Hour By The Concrete Lake" in my opinion is the place to start. Here, Pain Of Salvation was a young band - trying to prove they can hang with other top progressive acts. No doubt, balls to the wall... giving it their all... I think they proved their chops hand over foot. My two favorite songs are "Water" followed by "Home"... the first featuring brilliant guitar work and amazing solos, and the latter featuring wonderful keyboards and Gildenlow's soaring vocals. Not only can they jam with the likes of other prog favorites of mine (i.e. Dream Theater, Enchant, Porcupine Tree, etc), they can definitely slow it down - check out the acoustic "Pilgrim" with touching lyrics and a masterful cello. Tracks 2-5 rock with great hooks that keeps the listener interested. The last song "Inside Out" is listed at roughly 6.5 minutes, but there's a 5 minute pause at the end of the song with a 1 minute jam at the end (the song lists at 12 minutes when played). Sound production is above average, but not in the ranks of the slick and polished Dream Theater or a Porcupine Tree. Maybe that's some of the appeal here. While still good sound, it's just a tad rough around the edges. Pain of Salvation is a great band with lots of potential. Looking forward to future releases for years to come. Great disc."

One hour with Pain of Salvation...

Boris Kaplun | Reston, VA | 04/22/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"A disillusioned man working in the weapons industry begins to bring the morals and ethics of his occupation into question, falling into doubt about what it really is that he's doing from day to day. He considers the justifications that have been thrown at him by the Big Machine, as it were - "The pain and hunger is not your fault!"; "You are not guilty!"; "Guns don't kill, men kill!" Finally, on New Year's Eve, he makes a resolution to discover just what effects his seemingly harmless actions back home are having on the world at large. He sets off on a journey around the world, visiting far reaching places (including some real world locales such as the Black Hills in North America) and becoming witness to terrible acts that go against everything he was once told. Civilizations ripped apart by war, lands left barren by environmental devastation, careless water consumption, and more.



In the last step of his eye-opening journey, he arrives at the desolate shores of Lake Karachay, a place in the former Soviet Union that was used to store nuclear waste for upwards of forty years and that was eventually covered in concrete to dampen the incredible amount of radiation that was present. Unfortunately, the concrete began to split open after several years. Consequently, a given person would only need to stand on the shore of Lake Karachay for a single hour before the radiation exposure would reach such levels that the person would die from physical injuries in approximately two weeks.



Horrified by his discoveries, the man heads back home. Considering his situation, he realizes that he will never truly be able to distance himself from the Big Machine because it is his home, and because the world is just a giant maze of machines within more machines. Instead, he begins to understand that a machine is only made up of its proverbial wheels, and he is such a wheel. He decides to stay inside his chosen machine in an attempt to change its direction.



...and that is the groundwork for Pain of Salvation's dark concept album, One Hour By The Concrete Lake. It is a tale of sheer outrage towards war, environmental pollution, nuclear industry, and man's inhumanity to man that stems straight from frontman Daniel Gildenlow's personal distaste for western civilization in the contemporary world.



Fitting with the mood, this is also Pain of Salvation's most "metal" album. Where Entropia focused more on experimentation with various musical directions, One Hour By The Concrete Lake is far more direct and determined in its approach. Where The Perfect Element I focused on expansive dramaticism and empathy, One Hour By The Concrete Lake is far more immediate and angry in its delivery. The guitars are crunchy and riff-heavy, the drums probably see more double bass abuse than every other Pain of Salvation album put together, the bass is a highly prominent member of the music and often soars majestically over the guitars, and Daniel's vocals are aggressive and desperate, quizzical and confused... almost pleading. None of this is to imply that anything about this album is dull or monotonous - far from it. It is still distinctly Pain of Salvation's brand of utterly unique progressive metal, where the focus is always on the message and the delivery of that message, with instrumental acrobatics melding seamlessly and unobtrusively into that delivery.



The introductory track, "Spirit of the Land", is a brief instrumental filled with ethereal keyboards. It does, however, have some fitting lyrics which are obviously not sung or otherwise present in the music, but are relevant in setting the mood -



"Sit for a while, why rush?

The beauty is all around.

The red sky of the morning,

the different colours of the landscape,

the freshness of the breeze.

So sit for a while and rest

with the spirit of the land."



- and so we come to "Inside", starting with a continuation of the theme from "Spirit of the Land" mixed with classical piano and ride cymbals, with the band coming in shortly after with Daniel singing in a pained voice - "I was told the pain and hunger was not my fault - how could they be so wrong?" This is the moment where you are made aware that the album is deadly serious in what its attempting to relay, grasping your full attention in a rather subtle way.



"The Big Machine" is dark and brooding, with an outro that leaves me shivering in my skin every single time, without fail - Daniel chants repeatedly, "...what if we lose control?" First over a menacing guitar line and tribal drumming, but soon the band comes in with dense chord progressions and keyboards, and Daniel's voice gradually increases in intensity and power, until it strains noticeably. Powerful.



"Handful of Nothing" sees an uncompromising yet deceptively complex double-bass assault providing a driving backdrop for somber and tranquil guitar melodies and a soft vocal delivery. However, things turn upside down around halfway through as Daniel releases a piercing scream of frightening proportions... and just like that the song breaks into a stretch of acoustic guitar arpeggios behind multiple layers of Daniel's crooning vocals. A brief guitar solo comprised of beautiful volume swells follows, and the song draws to a close with Daniel engaging in sinister, propulsive narration atop a pulsing kick drum pattern.



The eighth track, "Black Hills", features my most beloved moment on this entire disc starting at approximately 3:40. Palm-muted acoustic arpeggios fill the scene along with Daniel's wordless vocal melodies; soon, the drums come in with sparsely distributed hits on the floor tom alternating with an open hi-hat; Daniel's vocals shift to a darker tone, with powerful exhalations that almost resemble a one-man choir; the bass escapes from its rhythmic trappings and lets loose several distinct notes opposite the drums, and then the scene culminates into phase two. Frantic ride cymbals augment the now slightly overdriven variation of the previous guitar melody; Daniel's voice begins to lose some of its structure and moves into a freer style; the bass turns into a full out melodic force, and the band comes together for a purely instrumental permutation of everything that had been building up to that point. This segment goes on for twenty seconds. Then, just as the music seems like it cannot possibly build any further - keyboardist Fredrik Hermansson comes in with an absolutely majestic classical piano, drummer Johan Langell brings in an absolutely fitting double bass pattern, and bassist Kristoffer Gildenlow really outdoes himself with soaring bass work that seems to pull at your very heart. End. Wow. I probably didn't do a very good job of describing that, but those are two minutes of truly staggering music.



The last two songs here, "Shore Serenity" and "Inside Out" are definitely the most frantic, to go along with the traumatic experiences being undergone by the protagonist at this final stage of his journey. "Inside Out" especially is an absolute monster that seems to cover everything previously heard on the album in the span of a single song. The double bass-led fury, the classical piano-led tenderness, the atmospheric and dense layers of sound punctuated by sweeping guitar solos, Daniel's multi-faceted vocal delivery, and even sections of flamenco-style guitar.



The ending also has associated lyricism that isn't actually heard on the album, much like the beginning -



"I dread the day my children will ask my why. I dread the day when I will have to explain to them that people thought it was acceptable to destroy the environment so that we could have jobs. I dread the day I will have to explain to my bright-eyed Joshua, who talks to dogs and listens to the grass screaming, that we were all too busy driving fast cars, rushing our children off to day-care, finding seniors' homes for our grandparents, and listening to the ringing of cash registers - We were all too busy to hear the grass screaming."



These unspoken excerpts are actually found all throughout the album, but I think it might be going a bit overboard to write all of them out in this review.



I read in another review that this album was conceived while Daniel was involved in International Relations and Nuclear Physics studies at school, and that the band decided to start recording this album after Daniel finished writing a very lengthy paper about the impact of music lyrics on listeners at a social level - and this is the kind of thing that separates Pain of Salvation from every last one of their peers, in my eyes at least. Their music has a sincere purpose. Every one of their albums screams out with beauty, emotion, awareness, and intelligence. Their music is not a vessel for instrumental [...]; rather, their instruments are vessels for the creation of worlds.



Pain of Salvation are utterly unique and original, and this album is yet another testament to the fact."

Never dull at a concrete lake

WillieB | 10/27/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Pain of Salvation (POS) are a one of a kind prog-metal band. They sound like no one else, the music they create is packed with imagination and excitement, and the lyrics are thought provoking. All the ingredients of a great band, right? "One Hour by the Concrete Lake" was my first POS disc and it took me a long time to appreciate it. The first few spins had me scratching my head (didn't know how to react) because it was unlike anything I've ever heard, but kept listening because it was spellbinding. They can combine heavy and soft elements perfectly into one song, which they do on "Water" and "Home". The musicianship is stellar, and the vocals (that alternate from a whisper to a scream, with multi-octave range) are spectacular.



All the songs on this disc will draw you in and hold your attention, like all great art does. Of course, POS are not for everybody, but for those who like this genre of music, this is a great introduction to a wonderful band.

"