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Pain - Dancing With The Dead review



Reviewer:
3.0

123 users:
7.99
Band: Pain
Album: Dancing With The Dead
Release date: 2005


01. Don't Count Me Out
02. Same Old Song
03. Nothing
04. The Tables Have Turned
05. Not Afraid To Die
06. Dancing With The Dead
07. Tear It Up
08. Bye, Die
09. My Misery
10. A Good Day To Die
11. Stay Away
12. The Third Wave

No one can deny that Peter Tagtgren is an important person in the world of metal music. Hypocrisy have recorded some classic Death Metal albums and Peter's talents as a producer have helped many bands bring the most out of their music. Unfortunately, Peter's industrial/pop metal band Pain is simply dreadfully wrong and literally a pain to listen to.

First of all, Tagtren's voice is very unsuitable for this kind of music. Obviously he is one of the best growlers around; however, his clean vocals leave a lot to be desired. His one-dimensional performance on this album makes it even less appealing. If the music was good, this could perhaps be forgiven. Sadly, this is not so.

"Same Old Song" is especially embarrasing with its overplayed, comically corny keyboard lines, pathetic lyrics and overtly polished, pop approach. Basically, this is a song so ridiculous that even bands like Dethstars or something would think twice before releasing it. The rest of the album isnt really any better as one cringe-inducing moment follows another. It's an atonal Swede singing lyrics like "We're not afraid to die/We're not afraid to kiss the sky" or "Bye, die" (indeed, the height of being articulate) to a techno beat and overdistorted guitar. At times I could swear I could hear the Backstreet Boys singing in the refrains. This simply cannot be considered good by anyone with any sort of taste. This music should be dumped in the same trash can as the one containing abominations like Zeromancer and VNV Nation.

Unfortunately, I am sure that as a testament to the poor taste of the masses, this album will actually be fairly popular. To those people who might pick up this garbage and think that it is worth anything, I would recommend checking out bands like Gravity Kills, Filter or Stabbing Westward. What they were doing (no less than a decade ago) is seemingly the same thing but they had good vocalists, interesting lyrics, intriguing musical ideas and were not blatantly commercial-sounding and trivial.

Mr. Tagtgren - its nice that you are trying to create music in various styles but please do us all a favor and leave these abominations that you create on the side in your head and concentrate on making Hypocrisy the ground-breaking Death Metal juggernout that it once was...





Written on 06.09.2005 by With Metal Storm since 2002, jupitreas has been subjecting the masses to his reviews for quite a while now. He lives in Warsaw, Poland, where he does his best to avoid prosecution for being so cool.


Comments

Comments: 7   Visited by: 172 users
17.06.2008 - 13:32
Rating: 9
Hamird
Lieutenant
I'm sorry to say this, but this review is not reliable for people who want to know about Pain.. this album is more than 3.0..
I respect your idea about Pain, and i rely on you because you are a very professional fan in Industrial Metal, but about Pain you are a bit unfair.
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06.12.2008 - 23:16
Passenger
Lost To Apathy
Jupitreas is right, as usual, in that the songwriting in this album is pretty average, but he's wrong, as usual, in saying that's immediately a bad thing. Dancing With The Dead is very catchy, very enjoyable, everything you want to listen to when you're tired of erudite or unconventional music. I could care less for how many people might or might not like it, I can't listen to The Funeral Orchestra all the time, I can't listen to Joe Satriani all the time, I can't listen to Godflesh all the time, there's a space for stuff like Pain sometimes, and bands who try to compete with Pain for that space rarely reach the quality of said band.
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You don't make up for your sins in church. You do it in the streets. You do it at home. The rest is bullshit and you know it ~ Mean Streets
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28.05.2009 - 18:02
Rating: 7
Feirund

Damn it, an album is first about an idea - Tagtgren's ideas here are awesome - as alawys.
As for his vocals - it's enough to remember how many vocalists suck countless times more than he does but still get acknowledged - critisizing his vocals after that isn't very smart.
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24.01.2011 - 21:09
Rating: 9
.:Nataras:.
.:Saratan:.
Really bad review... I'm so sorry!!!... completely unfair!!!!
Pain is awesome!!! and this album is one of the best albums of Pain!!!
3.0 !?!?!!?

just enjoy!!! music is an way to enjoy!!! a way of life!!!... lyric is simple!! guitars are simple!! drums is simple!!! but the best music is simple music!!!
although, Pain have always his own technicality!!!
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.:Saratan:.
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15.08.2011 - 05:19
Rating: 7
Kuroboshi

It might not be the most overwhelming album out there, and his voice might not be the virtuoso of some like Jorn, but I think it fits with the music. It's a fun ride, contains some awesome riffs and hooks. And by the way, I absolutely adore Same Old Song.
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15.06.2016 - 22:07
Rating: 7
Reaper_Redeemer

Yeah Jupitreas was a bit harsh here. He maybe changed opinion for this album (not considering a good one but not in that 3.0 level). Pain is just a band with relaxing music for me, I make a playlist with 2-3 songs-hits from every album and Peter is just chilling me out, nothing more - nothing less.
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16.06.2016 - 10:48
jupitreas
hi-fi / lo-life
Written by Reaper_Redeemer on 15.06.2016 at 22:07

He maybe changed opinion for this album


Nope, sorry, I still think this album is atrocious.
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