Pain of Salvation
 

Well, Since there's no thread on them, i might as well make one.
Progressive metal from Sweden centered around the lead guitarist/vocalist/composer Daniel Gildenlöw. Although progressive metal is what they might be known by, half their material is hardly metal. All their releases are "concept" albums. The music is centered more around the vocals.
They do come off a bit "Pretentious", but bah, screw that word. That's what makes them interesting in the first place.

Entropia, their debut is by far the heaviest and overlooked. The vocals aren't at it's best here, but the music and the concept overall really are solid.

One Hour by the Concrete Lake, the follow up, is kinda similar to Entropia. Musically, again solid but the concept is kinda weak. Seems a bit lacking overall.

The Perfect Element I, Remedy Lane & Be are all superb progressive masterpieces. Again, all are concept albums. The Perfect Element I and Remedy Lane are somewhat similar, musically. Be is on a league of its own and not recommended to start with. It's not even metal.

Scarsick, their last release...well It's definitely their most controversial one :p: Different to say the least, but yah, It's more of a "love it" or "Hate it" kinda thing.

What do they sound like?
A combination of say, Van Der Graaf Generator and Faith No More.

I'll post a compilation soon...In an hour or so. My crappy net keeps disconnecting while uploading it :mad:

Till then, here are a few tracks-

YouTube - Pain of Salvation - In the Flesh
YouTube - Pain of Salvation - Iter Impius
YouTube - Pain of Salvation - Martius Nauticus II
YouTube - Pain of Salvation - A Trace of Blood
YouTube - Pain of Salvation - Kingdom of Loss

Yeah... I just can't get into them at all. OHBTCL is on my playlist and I keep forgetting to erase it, keeps playing tracks from it and I keep right on hating it! :)
For me, boring, pretentious, uninteresting and overblown are the words that spring to mind when I hear PoS (as well as the phrase "remember to delete")!

Pretentious? Maybe
Boring/Uninteresting? Far away from it

I could name a dozen prog. rock albums that could be termed "pretentious". Heck, many great albums are pretentious upto an extent(depends on the way you look at it obviously). It shouldn't be the first factor to judge the music. You can definitely tell when a band is sincere and when they aren't. I prefer my progressive music without cheesy/crappy vocals and over-instrumentation. And these guys definitely seem to satisfy both. OHBTCL for me is their most uninteresting release...maybe try Be or The Perfect Element?

If you honestly don't like it, well, fair enough. Not trying to force you or anything :p:

I'll be honest. If I had heard Kamelot's first album only, I would probably have hated them, and missed out on some fantastic music, so yes, maybe I just chose the wrong one as far as PoS are concerned.
I may try another, though to be honest the music is backing up on my Zen, so it may be a while before I would give them another chance. So much to listen to! :)
And the new Marillion out on Monday! YAY! :D

You definitely are missing out!

Anyways, here's a compilation if anyone is interested.
I had to split it into two parts since my net is giving me troubles.

PoS Compilation Part 1
PoS Compilation Part 2

Track Listing -

1. In the Flesh
2. People Passing By
3. Iter Impius
4. Her Voice
5. Undertow
6. Oblivion Ocean
7. Martius-Nauticus II
8. A Trace of Blood
9. Kingdom of Loss
10. Idioglossia
11. Beyond The Pale
12. Inside

Hey Demonoid, you allowed do this?
If it's not against the rules then, I'll run up a Mostly Autumn compo for you over the weekend. Whaddya think?
TH

As far as i know, posting your own compilations are fine. But not entire albums. So yeah, I'm sure you'll interest a few if you do post one :D

Entirely correct. The more compilations the better as far as I'm concerned. Cheers for the comp demonoid. Looking forward to this one.

All the names of the songs on Be are Latin phrases. Yeah, they're pretentious. But I like them.

Undecided. One minute I love what they are doing, then it almost becomes parody. At least they are providing me with food for thought. An interesting band to say the least (yes I know it is mainly one guy)