Someone should buy Peter Tagtgren a fish tank… a jigsaw
\npuzzle… a
\nWhere’s Waldo<\/i> book…
\nsomething<\/i> to give this guy a hobby other than music. I lost
\ncount a long time ago of how many bands Tagtgren’s working with
\n(the best known undoubtedly Hypocrisy), and how many groups he’s
\nproduced in the last few years. In terms of staying busy, Tagtgren
\nis the Frank Zappa of extreme metal.<\/p>\n
Yet Tagtgren has a side to his music that wants to break out of
\nthe death\/speed\/grind-core aspect – which is what Pain is for.
\nEssentially a one-man band, Tagtgren shows on Pain’s latest effort
\nRebirth<\/i> that the most qualified person to do a musical
\nmarriage of electronic rock and metal is someone who has their
\nroots firmly grounded in the metal scene. And, for the most part,
\nTagtgren does things amazingly well. If only he had that one
\nmissing element which would keep the listener hooked into every
\nbeat and note.<\/p>\n
For someone who is almost legendary in the metal community,
\nTagtgren is to be commended for staying in the world of
\nindustrial\/electronic rock as much as he does with these 11 songs.
\nIt would have been far too easy for Tagtgren to have relied on
\nlightning-fast rhythms and crunching guitar parts to carry Pain’s
\nsound. Instead, he focuses on keyboards and his own vocals, and
\ndelivers results which may pleasantly surprise even his most loyal
\nfans.<\/p>\n
It’s not the easiest transition, though. While the opening track
\n“Supersonic Bitch” is a pleasant enough outing, it doesn’t have the
\nhook musically which is able to keep someone’s interest throughout
\nthe entire song. It’s not that Tagtgren doesn’t know how to seal
\nthe deal musically – “End Of The Line,” “Breathing In, Breathing
\nOut” and “She Whipped” are stellar examples of how good this genre
\ncan be. But this particular track is missing something which could
\nhave pushed it over the edge and into the upper echelon of songs on<\/p>\n
Rebirth<\/i> – and I don’t pretend to have the answer to that
\nmystery.<\/p>\n
Indeed, there is not a bad song on
\nRebirth<\/i> – though I admit I’m at a loss to explain the
\ntransitional piece “12:42” and what it was meant to accomplish. Yet
\nthere are times when Tagtgren falls just short of the bullseye, and
\nthere are times when he sends the musical dart clean through the
\nboard. Why a track like “Suicide Machine” succeeds and another like
\n“Dark Fields Of Pain” doesn’t measure up as well, I don’t know
\nexactly.<\/p>\n
\nRebirth<\/i> also includes a video for “End Of The Line” – just
\ndon’t ask me to explain what the hell is going on in it, because I
\ncan’t even begin to decipher it. (Obviously, Tagtgren has seen a
\nfew Nine Inch Nails videos.)<\/p>\n
Everyone needs some side project to vent off a little steam from
\none’s day job, and
\nRebirth<\/i> is proof that Pain is a great project for Tagtgren.
\nEven with my quibbles (which are minor), it’s well worth the time
\nto check this one out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26069,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6288],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-37280","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-pain","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37280"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37280\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37280"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=37280"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=37280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}