PAIN OF SALVATION — BE (review)

Album · 2004 · Progressive Metal

3.5/5 · 2013-05-07
The Angry Scotsman

An intriguing album that is a major break from the band's old style.

Considered by some as the bands masterpiece, by some as the beginning of the end for the great band, by some just a weird, difficult work "BE" is a unique piece of music that at least warrants a few listens to try and grasp it.

While Pain of Salvation's first 4 albums were well written, not too technical, emotional and unpretentious classics of prog metal, "BE" is a dense, difficult and pretentious album that is very low on the metal.

Not that it's a bad thing. While proud of their superior music, prog fans have proven they can be as stubborn as any. Frankly, I applaud the band's radical change in direction, even if it's not the best executed, and certainly not the most accessible. Wouldn't we all end up mocking the band if they just made 8 albums of the same thing anyway?

No doubt this is a challenging album. Besides the big drop in heaviness, the whole album works together as one big piece instead of individual songs. Each song flows into the next, and often the songs themselves feature stops followed by huge changes, like the work has moved onto its next part and the "songs" are random lines thrown down randomly not really marking a new piece.

Indeed this appears to be the case. In true prog rock fashion the album is really broken into 5 movements, subdivided into the songs and sometimes the songs subdivided into smaller segments. "BE" deals with human existence, the environment and especially the subject of God. It's a grandiose story that rivals Tool in being labyrinth like and purposely impenetrable. Could continue on with this stuff but onto the music itself before I get too distracted.

"BE" is an extremely diverse prog rock album. There are moments of heaviness, but its largely a mellow prog rock outing with an orchestral feel. Violins, cellos, brass, woodwinds, and church organ are all found throughout. While at first listen "BE" sounds quite minimal, like background to whatever wackiness is going on, if you listen all the way through there are some pretty awesome riffs, melodies and all the staples of Pain of Salvation: off beat syncopation, abrupt changes, gentle movements and rock out thrashing, and of course Daniel's varied always perfect vocal style. Though quite a few times they are over the top and silly, sometimes painful and you have to accept it as part of the whole experience, or grin and bear it.

There is heavy use of spoken word samples like real people calling "Gods answering machine" to say anything they'd like, news stories of various tragedies, a woman orgasming, it's all over the place. Which can be said of the music as well, all over the place. Rockin prog metal, folk passages, church like music and Broadway musical you really have no idea what this album will throw at you.

So I really can't accurately describe this album, not in a way to do it justice, so you just have to listen yourself. It's important not to skip, even if you're going crazy to do so. Just listen from start to finish, and do so several times. At first it will be a mess, I know I couldn't even figure out what was happening, but with time the music itself will appear and it's a pretty solid display of prog rock. Overly serious and wacky, almost to the point of self parody? Seems that way, but just give it a few deep listens. Some parts really are quite beautiful, like the worldly folk piece "Imago" and "Vocari Dei" featuring the people calling "Gods answering machine" is one of the more moving things you'll hear.

I am not sure how to rate this, each person can react to an album like this so radically different, and even though I quite like it, "BE" can not be called a metal album. Which is difficult to rate overall for a metal site. So I'll say it's a pretty good album at it's core, but only each of us can truly decide for ourselves how we feel. Regardless, it's an experience like few others.

Three and a Half Stars, but rate for yourself!