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Pain: You Only Live Twice

Industrial Metal

3.5/5.0

Nuclear Blast
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by Craig Hartranft,  05.30.2011

I've never quite understood the whole 'industrial' metal concept, the supposed genre of Peter Tagtgren's (Hypocrisy) Pain. You Only Live Twice is the seventh outing for his side project and alter ego. Generally, this music uses repeating metal guitar riffs, sampling, synthesizer or sequencer lines to create the sound. With Pain, Tagtgren opts to draw from heavy rock, heavy, power, symphonic and, of course, death metal, from his Hypocrisy side. You Only Live Twice certainly is thick with layers riffs, synths, vocals and the lot with often times a heavy driving beat, sometimes quite up tempo. I guess you're supposed to dance to this stuff?

Unaccustomed as I am to the genre, here's likely a trivial overview of You Only Live Twice. Let Me Out sounds like symphonic power metal; Feed the Demon is heavier, harsher, with death vocals; The Great Pretender has the up tempo rock/dance feel; You Only Live Twice along with Season of the Reaper channel heavier metal, the latter almost doom metal, over slower pace.; We Want More has a driving fast beat, but even that is not exclusive to this song; Monster is a strange brew of thrash, death, and symphonic metal; and finally, Dirty Woman is move heavy rock, with a catchy and accessible groove and a noticeable guitar solo. These are cursory observations; I probably missed the mark on most of them.

Outside of Dirty Woman and The Great Pretender, I'm rather ambivalent about Tagtgren and Pain's You Only Live Twice. If you're a fan of heavy metal in its many incarnations, I think you should be curious to investigate this work. Otherwise, I'm quite sure fans of both the band and genre will probably dig the latest from Pain.

Outside of Dirty Woman and The Great Pretender, I'm rather ambivalent about Tagtgren and Pain's You Only Live Twice. If you're a fan of heavy metal in its many incarnations, I think you should be curious to investigate this work. Otherwise, I'm quite sure fans of both the band and genre will probably dig the latest from Pain.

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Formed in 1999 by singer, songwriter, producer, and multi-instrumentalist Erik Martensson, Sweden's Eclipse is well into their third decade of making music. In the recent past, their recordings and reputation have ... [ Read More ]