Pain - You Only Live Twice
I’ve been a fan of Peter Tagtgren’s work since the first note on Penetralia, so I hate to say that I’m disappointed by this album. That disappointment doesn’t come from a band putting out something substandard (such as Hypocrisy’s Catch 22 - no amount of reworking could save that abortion) but it comes from a band putting out an LP that sticks to a well-used formula and doesn’t deviate from it for an instant. The songs on here are well executed, well produced, but ultimately stuff you’ve heard already on previous Pain albums in one form or another. The marketing on this was that it had all of the best elements of previous Pain releases - and that might be true. That, sadly, doesn’t translate to an album full of great tracks. This leads to the second problem with You Only Live Twice: it doesn’t seem to have a standout track or anything “special” compared to previous albums. I’ve listened to it any number of times, trying to pick out a song that would fall into that category, but nothing sticks out glaringly and says “I’m the best fucking track on this album.” The songs are all okay when you listen to them, but as soon as the CD stops playing, you can’t remember anything. Maybe I had my expectations set too high because the last Hypocrisy album fucking ruled. Peter Tagtgren fronts both bands, right? I figured that since he was writing the bulk of the music for Hypocrisy and all of the music for Pain, if the first was awesome, the other one would be kick-ass, too. You Only Live Twice doesn’t suck, but it really doesn’t go anywhere either. Sadly, I think that maybe Pain has run its course. Either Peter needs to bring in some outside collaboration to freshen things up, or he should just bury it before it becomes stagnant to the point of self-parody.
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