Pain Of Salvation - Entropia review
| Band: | Pain Of Salvation |
| Album: | Entropia |
| Style: | Progressive metal |
| Release date: | August 21, 1997 |
| Guest review by: | addiction |
01. ! (Foreword)
02. Welcome To Entropia
03. Winning A War
04. People Passing By
05. Oblivion Ocean
06. Stress
07. Revival
08. Void Of Her
09. To The End
10. Never Learn To Fly [Japanese bonus]
11. Circles
12. Nightmist
13. Plains Of Dawn
14. Leaving Entropia (Epilogue)
This album is the one that started it all. Daniel Gildenlöw started this band in 1984 at the age of 11, and this album came out in Japan in 1997 and in Europe in 1999. During this time, writing and performing music in various shows and contests definitely helped to evolve the sound. At the age of 24, Daniel was in my humble opinion a really good songwriter and showcasing his amazing voice, one of metal's best! Along with D. Magdic (his only album with the band, although he co-wrote some songs for the next album) they wrote this impressive first album for Pain Of Salvation.
This is definitely not their best album, but it is still an amazing progressive metal record. Anyone could definitely see how it led to the magnificent "The Perfect Element Part I" and "Remedy Lane". However, the sound in those two later releases is somewhat fuller, with better production, and they are more personal. The album starts off with "! (foreword)", and oh my god what a start it is! This is one of my favorite PoS tracks, which immediately showcases Daniel's vocal abilities and the talent of the band. It is probably their most up-tempo album (the most metal, if you like), although it has it's slow moments as well. Some other songs that stand out are "People Passing By", which is a bit more than nine minutes long and takes you on a journey of ups and downs and leaves you extremely satisfied at the end of it. Then there is "Oblivion Ocean" which is quite sad, but the music is just beautiful. Another very good track is "Revival" which is probably the most powerful song and has quite aggressive lyrics, which is always good!
The band liked experimenting a lot since their early days and you can tell that by listening carefully to their tracks, because you will be able to tell that there are some passages that are a bit funky or jazzy for example. Also, a couple of these songs were written a few years before the recording, like "Oblivion Ocean" for instance. I am not even going to comment on the lyrics on this album or any other of their's for that matter, since they are always well thought and I would need a couple of pages to comment on them. They are just excellent as always and they deal with worldwide problems like war for example, in this album's case. I would even dare call them contemporary poetry.
All in all, this album is a very strong start for an amazing band and would give any progressive metal band a run for their money. I would recommend any of their albums to anyone, although this one is a little bit rawer than their later work. This album starts with the lyrics: "Walk with me! There are worlds to see! Listen to me now - you." And you will walk with them, see worlds, and you do all of that by just listening to them.
Rating breakdown
| Performance: | 9 |
| Songwriting: | 9 |
| Originality: | 9 |
| Production: | 8 |
Written by addiction | 18.02.2008
Guest review disclaimer:
This is a guest review, which means it does not necessarily represent the point of view of the MS Staff.
This is a guest review, which means it does not necessarily represent the point of view of the MS Staff.
Comments
Comments: 12
Visited by: 111 users
| Bad English Tage Westerlund Posts: 62002  |
Good rewiew fille mou I liie it but Its not my band Im not fan of this band, only firts album But you shood continue whit rewiewing
---- I stand whit Ukraine and Israel. They have right to defend own citizens. Stormtroopers of Death - "Speak English or Die"  I better die, because I never will learn speek english, so I choose dieing
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| Katatronik Angel of Lust Posts: 1018  |
I prefer The Perfect Element and BE, but here there are a lot of amazing songs, I like a lot this album! Good review! 
---- "The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown." Howard Phillips Lovecraft
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| addiction Posts: 277  |
Written by Bad English on 18.02.2008 at 14:21 Written by Katatronik on 18.02.2008 at 16:50 thank you both! you are very kind! 
---- alive in the superunknown
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| Bad English Tage Westerlund Posts: 62002 |
Written by addiction on 18.02.2008 at 18:59 and dont worry I always think tht those thinks what I wrote are bad but no thay arnt its hard to say about your own thinks
---- I stand whit Ukraine and Israel. They have right to defend own citizens. Stormtroopers of Death - "Speak English or Die" I better die, because I never will learn speek english, so I choose dieing
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| wrathchild Staff Posts: 14090  |
My fav from Pain Of Salvation, probably because it doesn't follow a story, a concept, at least not so tightly as the other albums do. This one feels fresh and showcase everything they have developed afterwards.
---- La belleza no reside en lo que puedas crear, sino en lo que eres capaz de transmitir Beauty resides not in what you're able to create, but in what you're able to communicate Txus, Mägo De Oz
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| Elio Red Nightmare Posts: 4920  |
It's a great album but it's damn long and tends to bore me after a while...I this had lasted 50 minutes it would have been a masterpiece.
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| Uirapuru Liver Failure Posts: 2955  |
Great review! Im really impressed about this album. The first from Pain Of Salvation i've ever heard, and the first impression couldnt be better.  Yeah, its pretty long, but that does not discount much in the albuns rate.
----  ---- member of the true crusade against old school heavy metal, early 80s thrash, NWOBHM, traditional doom, first and second wave black metal, old school death metal, US power metal, 70s prog rock and atmospheric doomsludgestoner. o/
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| addiction Posts: 277 |
Thank you Uirapuru! yeah it is a pretty impressive debut! i haven't listened to it for a while, but i think i will today...
---- alive in the superunknown
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| BloodTears ANA-thema Elite Posts: 11835  |
Actually Entropia is a very curious album. Very strong and dark. It's funny because you can clearly see the influences of the progressive metal scene in their sound, particularly Dream Theater and to me, that's an interesting fact, not something to be worried about. The thing with Entropia and Pain of Salvation is that they take the progressive sound and make it their own, adding their elements, they built their own sound. And what I like about this band is the risk taking and the fact that they are willing to go very deep to make beautiful music. There's this aggressiveness to them that I really like. Foreword, Ocean Oblivion, Nightmist and the bonus track (never learn to fly) are my favourite songs.
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| JohnDoe Account deleted |
JohnDoe
Account deleted
Great album indeed; i remember when this album was just out, one of the reviewers in a rock/metal magazine back then described Enthropia as "Yes given the Faith No More treatment". This was the first reason i said to myself - well, I've got to listen to this!  I don't hear Dream Theater influences here, that's why I like POS so much, thy are not one of the DT clones.
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| BloodTears ANA-thema Elite Posts: 11835 |
Written by [user id=17278] on 30.04.2010 at 16:54 I never saw them as clones, on the contrary, but there are certain riffs that are very DT, listen closely
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| BlankFile Posts: 705 |
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