Album/EP

PAIN – Welcome Home (Album Review)

Walladmin

Heavy Metal Wordsmith

/10

Sep 29, 2016

7 min read

PAIN – Welcome Home

OUT NOW

PAIN Line Up:

Peter Tägtgren | Vocals & Guitar
Michael Bohlin | Guitar
Johan Husgafvel | Bass
David Wallin | Drums

PAIN online:

www.painworldwide.com
www.facebook.com/officialpain
www.nuclearblast.de/pain

"That's me designed to piss you off!" So begins Peter Tägtgren's eighth release with Pain. Tägtgren is something of a Renaissance man in the world of heavy metal. A multi-instrumentalist, vocalist and producer, his influence is felt far and wide, not least of all working with bands such as Dimmu Borgir, Children Of Bodom and Sabaton to name a few.

Welcome Home has Tägtgren stamped all over it. Stomping on things is what he does best. Genres are no barrier to the talented individual with this latest release ignoring all the rules of metal. From the first track, it has an almost American sound, opening with a Southern Rock inspired riff before taking off at a hundred miles an hour. The track is a standard, catchy-as-hell rock track with a great hook. Things get more interesting the further into the album you go.

The second track, ‘Call Me' takes several genres and squashes them all together. What comes out is truly surprising. The rat-a -tat-tat machinegun-like guitars, combined with beautifully orchestrated strings including violins and cellos, soars high and it's all brought crashing down as the song descends into electronic noise. That's just the introduction. Add to the mix lyrics pertaining to male prostitution – God knows metal needs a bit of this to balance the plethora of hooker/stripper/groupie tracks penned over the years. Lyrically, 'Call Me' wanders into Steel Panther territory, with gems like "call me. Like a genie in a bottle, I'll rub you the right way." Believe me, once heard, that worm will burrow deep into your cranium, taking up residence for days. Somehow, even with the ridiculous lyrical content, the track avoids descending into parody, in-part thanks to Joakim Brodén's raw, almost menacing vocals. The Sabaton lead singer adds yet another layer to a track already bursting at the seams with complexity – all this in a song about sex.

The album doesn't concern itself with just sex, although the theme is revisited a few tracks later with ‘Pain In The Ass' (I've resisted the urge to go too deep into that). Tägtgren loves a good conspiracy theory and ‘Black Knight Satellite' looks into the 13,000-year-old space equivalent of the Loch Ness Monster. Tip-toeing piano combined with more industrial metal goodness and a generous swathe of orchestra is a sure-fire recipe for another solid offering.

Of the ten tracks, there isn't a weak one among them. That said there's not a clear stand out either. If you like a bit of genre-defying metal you'll gladly get your teeth into Welcome Home. If that's not your thing this album is designed to piss you off.

I’m giving Welcome Home 8 ½ natural born idiots out of 10

Welcome Home track listing: