RockRoast

“Undertow” by Pain of Salvation has long been one of my favorite songs. I love it for its intensity of emotion and the way it conveys these deep, dark feelings with sincerity and beauty. Pretty much awesome stuff all around.

But another reason why I love “Undertow” is because the whole song seems to serve as a frame for the vocals. Every note played on every instrument is wonderful, but it never upstages the singer and only enhances what the he’s doing. Some of the guitar parts are simply unisons with the vocal melody.

And as the music becomes a backdrop for the singing, the focus shifts to the singer. The song is now defined by the vocal performance, the lyrics being sung, and the emotions with which the lyrics are delivered. And all that maximizes the song’s effect.

There are lots of good songs that suffer from poor vocal performances. Every time I hear Chad Kroeger grunt through “Far Away,” I think of how much better that song could have been with a better voice from a singer who at least acted like he felt some kind of connection with the words he was singing. “Undertow” is driven by the top-notch vocals of Daniel Gildenlow, and his emotional (not to mention eclectic) singing is what made me fall in love with Pain of Salvation.

A few days ago, I was browsing YouTube and came across a live performance of “Undertow.” At first, I was disappointed that the arrangement had been modified from the beloved studio version. But as the song progressed and Gildenlow sang his heart out, I began to realize that, though the arrangement had changed, the song had not—it was simply a different but equally effective backdrop for an unbelievably emotional vocal.

This is how you do music, folks.

Dominici’s latest album, O3: A Trilogy - Part 3 hits stores in North America today. Go pick it up. You’ll be able to find it at Best Buy and probably at FYE.

Well, my hopes for a great new album from Into Eternity were veritably murdered by an April 2nd post on their official website.

The band have announced that the title of their upcoming release is The Incurable Tragedy. Earlier, I had expressed interest in their next album because guitarist Tim Roth had described it as a concept album. But it seems the concept will revolve around the cancer-related deaths of several of Roth’s friends and family members.

Poor guy. But cancer isn’t exactly the best subject matter for a concept album. I was hoping for something along the lines of Pink Floyd’s The Wall or Queensryche’s Operation: Mindcrime. I wanted something with one of those awesome fictional plots. But it appears that Roth’s lyrics will be intensely personal and overwhelmingly depressing. Kind of like his lyrics on the band’s last album, unfortunately.

I suppose only the release of the album will be able to confirm whether I’m right about the concept, but I’m not as optimistic as I was before this news.

Couple that with the release of a demo track from The Incurable Tragedy recently released on the band’s Myspace page and I’m hardly optimistic at all. The song, “Diagnosis Terminal,” sounds like it would have belonged very well on Into Eternity’s previous release, The Scattering of Ashes, in that it is bursting with unused potential.

“Diagnosis Terminal” contains some of the band’s trademark sounds: quick, ill-transitioned time signature changes, mediocre vocals ranging from throaty screams to low growls to clean falsetto, melodies that alternate between flatness and beauty, moments of instrumental brilliance buried between loud solos and hyperactive riffs, and the usual raping of the double-bass pedal. It’s discouraging to hear so many things in one song that are so similar to the mess that was The Scattering of Ashes. I’d hoped to hear some kind of progression, a different direction, or a bit more variety. But “Diagnosis Terminal” is only one song. Hopefully the rest of The Incurable Tragedy will be better.

We can only hope.