Tag: Scandinavian prog

Paint of Salvation band members

Healing Our Time: Pain of Salvation’s “Panther”

On By Bryan MoreyIn progressive rock1 Comment

Pain of Salvation PantherPain of Salvation, Panther, Inside Out Music, August 28, 2020.

Tracks: 1. Accelerator (05:31), 2. Unfuture (06:46), 3. Restless Boy (03:34), 4. Wait (07:04), 5. Keen to a Fault (06:01), 6. Fur (01:34), 7. Panther (04:11), 8. Species (05:18), 9. Icon (13:30) 

Members: Daniel Gildenlöw – lead vocals and lots of stuff; Johan Hallgren – guitar and vocals; Léo Margarit – drums and vocals; Daniel Karlsson – keyboards, guitars, and vocals; Gustaf Hielm – bass and vocals 

Apparently I’m about two and a half decades late to the Pain of Salvation game. Better late than never, I suppose. I know I’ve listened to some of their more recent work when it came out, but at the time it didn’t grab me. Panther grabbed me, and now listening to a bit of their back catalog I’m starting to get it. Pain of Salvation have their own unique corner of the progressive metal market. No one else sounds quite like they do, at least on this new album. Pain of Salvation is just more proof that Scandinavia has the best bands.

Panther deals with tensions between those who fit into society and those who don’t. As someone who probably fits with the latter (and I imagine many progressive rock fans and musicians also would), the overarching concept certainly appeals. There are also dystopic overtones throughout, especially on “Unfuture.”

Welcome to the new world… a better and improved world for our mankind. – “Unfuture”

On the concept, Daniel Gildenlöw comments, “Because we live in a time where we’re more aware of people not fitting the norm and we’re doing everything we can as a society to acknowledge all of these individuals, but at the same time, they’re more disowned than ever, more medicated than ever. The album is painting pictures of a world, I guess. If this was a movie it would be scenes from a city. It’s set in one city, and it’s populated by dogs and the panthers, the so-called normal people and the spectrum people. That’s the setting for the entire album.”

Conceptually this is an album that will stand the test of time. It deals with timeless issues, in a similar way to Steven Wilson’s lyrics from both his Porcupine Tree and solo careers.

Continue reading “Healing Our Time: Pain of Salvation’s “Panther”” →

The Punctuated Funk of Norway’s Karisma Records

On By bradbirzerIn progressive rock music1 Comment

Looking for a new, interesting label?  

You get the serious funk just looking at this logo
You get the serious funk just looking at this logo

We’ve spent so much time chasing down Kscope over the past five years that some other labels might have gotten too little attention.  Kscope has certainly been distracting for us, serving as a kind of Pixar to the prog and post-prog world.

Here’s one that definitely demands watching.  And, demands because it’s going to be an interesting ride with them.

At a time during which the major, big player, colossal labels of the last three decades are crumbling under the weight of radio formatting changes and imploding because of the extreme decentralization of the market–due to the release and outreach of the work and through the fundamentally democratic ethos of the internet–it’s great to see some new innovative and entrepreneurial labels realizing and offering the positions of ombudsman, muse, and midwife.  Kscope has that in spades.

This label I want to introduce to you now, has it well–again–in spades.  This one is Karisma Records.  Good solid, interesting, innovating lyrics and intense music.  Prog, psychedelic, bass-blues, funk, real funk, funkadelic., nineteenth-century folk instruments . . it’s fusing and combining in ways you might not be expecting.

Dang, does it work.

Karisma seems likely to be the next big label, ready to step in where the old have failed to adapt to such a fundamentally altered marketscape.

If you have time for nothing else at the moment, please set your browser to stun and at least visit the magical and mythic snow world of Norway: http://www.karismarecords.no/

Even the website makes my brain swirl with Pink Panther-like effects.

[Updated, June 16, 2014: fixed ca. 10 typos]

 

POSTAL ADDRESS:

Karisma &
Dark Essence Records AS
Postboks 472
5805 Bergen
Norway

PRESS, GENERAL CONTACT

Tel: +47 95 74 92 19 (Martin)
post(a)karismarecords.no

DISTRIBUTION, WHOLESALE, SHIPPING

Tel: +47 922 66 316 (Bjørnar)

FINANCE / ACCOUNTING / CONTRACTS

+47 412 11 208 (Kristine)
kristine(a)karismarecords.no