PICTURES OF PAIN - review added 8th March 2011
Album Review: The Reckoning (2010)
For fans of: Melodic Metal... and images of injury
Pictures of Pain - Rune Fredriksen and Arne Marton Tangjerd on guitars, Hans Helge Iversen on vocals, Frode Gundersen on drums, and Roy Ostremon on bass hails from the west coast of Norway. The band was formed back in 2004 and had their first (self-titled) demo out by the end of 2005. The second demo "From the Ashes" came a year later.
"The Reckoning" is the band's debut album. The process of creation took a couple of years, part of which was mastering by guitarist Andy LaRocque (King Diamond, Death) who has also worked behind the desk with bands such as In Flames, Hammerfall, Evergrey and more.
The sound ranges from battle-esque metal at the lower end all the way up to melodic and death metals at the top. Pictures Of Pain are seriously into combining death howls with clean vocals as much as possible. Unusually I prefer the throaty screams here as the normal singing is distinctly average. And by average I mean rather pants.
Music wise, "The Reckoning" is full of standard-fare super-rapid drums, screaming guitars and rattling bass. Some of the musicianship is first class, but most of the time the sparing production job means not all instruments get chance to shine. However, it kind of works, and well the instruments combine with death howls in just the right way (which they do reasonably often) the result borders on magnificent.
Song wise there's little that stands out. I've listened to the album a good ten times now, and it still comes across as a release with a ton of good tidbits, but no songs that have star status. The drums of 'Betrayal' and the guitar solos of 'Deviator' and 'Final State' are examples of what these guys can achieve, and there are more moments throughout, but they don't tie together into anything cohesively great.
In Summation:
Maybe with another ten or twenty listens "The Reckoning" might grow on me, but I don't see it happening. With a better production job and less 'clean' vocals, they would definitely be onto something.
Entertainment/Enjoyment:
Musicianship:
Vocals:
Song Writing:
Production:
Overall (Not An Average Of The Above):
Check out... The guitars.
Track List:
01. Betrayal
02. Far Beyond
03. Eternal Rage
04. Deviator
05. Sign of Times
06. Years of Disgrace
07. The Reckoning
08. Final State
Label: Pitch Black Records
Artist's website(s): Pictures Of Pain | MySpace | Facebook
