Album Page: Pain of Salvation - Scarsick

Likely to be the last album I ever pre-order, Scarsick taught me a valuable lesson. Not known for consistency, PoS went way off the deep end with this one. A stinker and then some, Scarsick is PoS living up to its acronym.

I suppose there comes a time for every band to release a bad album - this is it for Pain of Salvation. Although I have to admit that it sucks on a high level - it has great production, flawless musicianship, decent songs - it lacks inspiration, is full of bland social bashing, and is ultimately going nowhere. Due to Mr. Gildenlöw it is the second part of The Perfect Element, but I fail to see how. Granted, there are a few highlights that remind of TPE pt.1 - Kingdom of Loss and Enter Rain for example. Relaxed, kind of gloomy Post Rock/Metal with tasteful guitars and atmospheric effects. But as an album it seems very patchy, the atmosphere is ruined by the extremely bland tracks America and Disco Queen, by the out of place rapping on the first two tracks (it was cool on the first track of TPE pt.1, it does not work here at all) and by the indecisiveness and meandering pointlessness which is most apparent in the track Idiocracy. What happened to the seemless connection of songs, the recurring motifs, the grand concept and brilliant, thoughtful lyrics?