PAIN – Dancing With The Dead

Peter Tagtgren is a familiar name in the Metal business as a profiled member of the Swedish Death Metal band Hypocrisy, and as producer at the legendary Abyss studios, which in the late nineties very much defined the sound of the Melodic Black Metal boom at the time. However, in his home country of Sweden, and also around Europe and Japan, Tagtgren is also famous for the project PAIN, a project which mixes punching Metal grooves and guitars with Techno synths and hit single choruses. Songs like “Shut Your Mouth” and “On And On” have been huge hits, and Dancing With The Dead is their new studio effort.

As with their previous releases, this album has one sole intention, and that is to enhance Mr. Tagtgren’s wallet. That said, no one has ever tried to hide this fact, and after years and years in the service of Heavy Metal, this hard working gentlemen deserves some reward for his work.

Taking the album’s intentions into consideration, one wouldn’t expect this to be a boiling cauldron of creativity, and so is indeed the case. Although the sound is a bit heavier and more guitar-based this time around, this is very much more of the same, and then it all depends on the quality of the songs if this is to be entertaining.

Luckily the standard is fairly high – as usually is the case when Mr. Tagtgren’s is involved – and there are several tracks with definite hit potential to be found on this album. Most prominent is the track “Same Old Song,” which also is released as the first single from the album, a killer track in the “Shut Your Mouth” vein, with a catchy keyboard theme accompanied by heavy guitars. Other stand-out tracks are the downright awesome title track “Dancing With The Dead,” the heavy “Don’t Count Me Out,” the melodic “Not Afraid To Die,” and “Bye/Die” (albeit the latter has a lousy intro riff).

One complaint against this album has to be the lack of variation. There are no songs longer than 4:39, and almost all of the songs have the same structure. This is a good point indeed, and also the reason why two thoughts come to mind (yes, some male members of society are still capable thinking two separate thoughts at once):
a). 12 songs might be a bit too many, and
b). that this album is a bit unnecessary, all in all, as it’s terrifyingly reminiscent of its predecessors.

Overall, though, the album makes for some good entertainment and performed live this material will definitely rock!