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Album Reviews : Pain – Coming Home

By on September 9, 2016

pain-coming-homePeter Tägtgren is a metal mastermind in every sense of the word. The man can do almost anything it seems, and his often dark and bizarre style reached its pinnacle last year when he released the most controversial album of the year together with Rammstein’s Till Lindemann under the project name of Lindemann. It is evident that Tägtgren is a very busy man and Coming Home is the first Pain album in five years.

Pain had an excellent run from 2002 to 2007 with three brilliant albums. Nothing Remains The Same and Dancing With The Dead are two of my favourite albums of all time. But then I feel that Tägtgren stagnated a bit. The magic started to fade ever so slightly on Cynic Paradise and by You Only Live Twice it had almost disappeared completely. My initial reaction when listening to Coming Home was that it was yet another a watered down version of the Pain that I fell in love with back in my teenage years. Although, the album is a grower and there are some highlights that I will keep coming back to in the future. Call Me, which also features Sabaton’s Joakim Brodén, hooked me straight away and it’s my go to song on this album. The title track is incredibly majestic and probably one of the most epic songs Tägtgren has ever made. Natural Born Idiot has an incredible groove and I can easily see it being a crowd favourite if it makes it onto setlists in the future. As you can probably tell by its name, Absinthe Phoenix Rising is a party anthem in every single way possible and the chorus will be sung by many drunken metalheads the world over from now on.

I have to commend Peter Tägtgren for sticking to his guns with Pain, it’s a concept that doesn’t really require a lot of change when done right, just a bit of polishing here and there. I do feel that it is the project’s major strength in a day and age where a lot of bands do change as they grow out of their initial sound. It is also a weakness, however. To me it feels like Pain has partly lost its mojo and a slight change in any direction at all could be healthy I think. Coming Home is a very clinical album, and while there is room for growth I find that I have to force myself to actively listen to it all in one go. I was hoping that after having released such a masterpiece with Lindemann last year, this Pain record would be equally exciting, alas, it doesn’t quite get there in the end.

Coming Home is out today via Nuclear Blast Records. You can purchase the album HERE.

About

Martin is an aspiring music photographer/videographer. He is originally from the southern parts of Sweden and now he's living in Sydney, Australia. Thanks to his older sister, he got into Rammstein at the age of 9, and since then he's been into all types of metal/rock. He loves to combine photography and music, but also filming concerts and produce live material. Follow him on Twitter and check out his website.