Pain of Salvation - Scarsick album cover and tracklist revealed!

[Warden_D]

It's not a wankfest. It's pretentious.

Hahaha yeah it really is. I've honestly never heard of these guys. This stuff is pretty good but the lyrics are out of control weird.

Hey they're reaching for something unique so good for them. Am I missing something though? There's some odd time signatures, but it's still rooted in traditional major/minor modal harmony and hard rock songwriting. It's frills rock, like dream theater, styx, or kansas. Why not just enjoy it like those bands? There's nothing wrong with that...

Now... THIS is theory dork stuff:

http://www.echolyn.com/multimedia/the_cheese_stands_alone.mp3

Why did they have to put so many mp3's on their website? There goes my afternoon...

D.

 

[entanglement]

Thanks for acting maturely good sir.

 

[hibernal_dream]

Now... THIS is theory dork stuff:

http://www.echolyn.com/multimedia/the_cheese_stands_alone.mp3

D.

Is it? What sets this apart from basic rock?

 

[Warden_D]

Is it? What sets this apart from basic rock?

Fantastic use of harmony, chord substitutions and _especially_ voice leading. Excellent navigation through time signatures. The vocal harmony arrangements are great, once again awesome voice leading. And killer execution. Great arrangement of the instruments, use of counterpoint. Just so much neat chordal stuff going on. I'm a sucker for good use of syncopation, which is sadly kind of disappearing in modern rock.

How much theory do you know? A lot of 'prog' metal bands play fast, use some dorian scales, and add a lot of funky chords here and there, but it's mostly just dressing up arena rock to make it sound a little fancier. Obviously Dream Theater knows some theory, but it comes out more in their ballads like Hollow Years which was actually pretty well arranged. Still, that didn't approach nearly the complexity of chord substitutions that you'll hear coming out of these guys or Holdsworth or any rock band full of jazz musicians.

Following at all? Pain of Salvation sounds good, but they don't strike me as being any more theory intense than Nevermore, Dream Theater, Queensryche, Fates Warning, Kansas, Styx, Moody Blues etc. But who cares all those bands rock hard! Well styx not so much.

D.

 

[hibernal_dream]

Fantastic use of harmony, chord substitutions and _especially_ voice leading. Excellent navigation through time signatures. The vocal harmony arrangements are great, once again awesome voice leading. And killer execution. Great arrangement of the instruments, use of counterpoint. Just so much neat chordal stuff going on. I'm a sucker for good use of syncopation, which is sadly kind of disappearing in modern rock.

How much theory do you know? A lot of 'prog' metal bands play fast, use some dorian scales, and add a lot of funky chords here and there, but it's mostly just dressing up arena rock to make it sound a little fancier. Obviously Dream Theater knows some theory, but it comes out more in their ballads like Hollow Years which was actually pretty well arranged. Still, that didn't approach nearly the complexity of chord substitutions that you'll hear coming out of these guys or Holdsworth or any rock band full of jazz musicians.

Following at all? Pain of Salvation sounds good, but they don't strike me as being any more theory intense than Nevermore, Dream Theater, Queensryche, Fates Warning, Kansas, Styx, Moody Blues etc. But who cares all those bands rock hard! Well styx not so much.

D.

Wow. Didn't expect such a cool answer. I know a bit of general theory but not so much guitar-specific stuff so that's probably why I didn't recognise it. What's a chord substitution?

 

[Warden_D]

Wow. Didn't expect such a cool answer. I know a bit of general theory but not so much guitar-specific stuff so that's probably why I didn't recognise it. What's a chord substitution?

Haha, no NO none of this is guitar specific. Guitarists are notoriously horrible with theory. They generally can't read music and don't understand harmony. They produce abominations like The Guitar Grimoire probably the single most detrimental piece of musical literature I've ever picked through. If you want to learn about music stay away from the guitar specific books.

Chord substitution is a concept that existed in classical music but never really got that name until it was used in jazz. Jazz is still in some ways a folk music. You play famous tunes called standards and put your own stamp on them (through solos and arrangements). Chord substitutions are a way of expanding the harmonic possibilities of chord progressions by swapping out the traditional chords of the song with more involved ones. Instead of (Dm7-G7-Cmaj7... kind of boring) you could play (dm6-Gsus b9-Db7#11-Cmaj#5 if you wanna be a dick.. Cmaj add9 is a lot more audience friendly) But who knows? This could sound retarded with the melody line, just gotta try. Plus there's hundreds of ways of voicing this, even on guitar. The point its still more or less the same progression, just a lot more ornate.

This is pretty advanced shit and outside of allan holdsworth is almost never used in any kind of metal. If you are a rocker there's probably a lot of other stuff that would be much more useful to you. Still if you want to hear really good substitution work, go download Frank Sinatra or any of the poppier crooners singing "Night and Day" and then download Joe Pass or Art Tatum doing the same song and listen to the difference.

D.

 

[unknown]

I love guitar grimoire.

 

[Scarifier]

I just wish the riffs would be less high note-y.

... But thats a major part of what sets them apart from other brutal bands.

These new album samples are the first time i've heard POS... and i don't think i want to hear anymore...

And as for the song you gave a link to Warden D, those vocals are annoying as fuck.

 

[Mort Divine]

... But thats a major part of what sets them apart from other brutal bands.

These new album samples are the first time i've heard POS... and i don't think i want to hear anymore...

And as for the song you gave a link to Warden D, those vocals are annoying as fuck.

These new album samples are really quite ... different from anything they have put out to date.

Listen to these songs:

In The Flesh
Handful of Nothing
Morning On Earth
Fandango