1st Listen.
Classic first-listen morass. But I’m inclined to like the production here more than the ‘90s sheen on Remedy Lane or the ‘80s black metal murk of Concrete Lake. The instruments seem well-separated. And, come to think of it, this isn’t even the 2020 remix!
The exceptions to the inevitable “everything sounds the same” morass: King of Loss, since I know the Falling Home outtake version (but the arrangement here still dropped into the swamp) and the title track, which is straight-up “like on first listen.”
2nd Listen.
The “getting used to pain” hook in Used is really catchy.
The opening riff of In the Flesh is awesome. It sounds familiar already, so I guess it must be one of the things reprised later.
Morning on Earth has strings, but they sound decent. The section with strings feels like something that could soundtrack a Record of Lodoss War forest.
Naturally, I love the rapping in Idioglossia. And whoa, the 5:50 breakdown! And damn, the 7:00 scream!!! It sounds like an electric guitar!
Great stuff in the section of Her Voices that starts at 1:45. Overall, though... could this, chronologically speaking, be the first good Pain of Salvation ballad?! Huh, but it’s not a ballad for long. The jam around 4:30 is nuts. I’m not hearing a lot of standard verse/chorus structures on this album! Wait, though, 6:20! What is this! Could soundtrack a Final Fantasy last boss battle!
Great seamless transition from Dedication to King of Loss.
Awesome last two minutes of The Perfect Element. Ending an album with a percussion frenzy (ala here, “BE” , and The Seer) should just become a genre. When people heard the first ever song with an offbeat, thank God they didn’t think, “Oh, that’s original and unique, I shouldn’t imitate it.” No, they imitated the hell out of it, and now there are thousands of reggae songs! That’s how all-percussion album endings should be! What a loss that they aren’t.
3rd Listen.
Did not enjoy this listen. Which is kind of weird, because I thoroughly enjoyed the last listen. I will chalk this up either to my listening to too much late Pain of Salvation recently, or (I think this is the main culprit) my having read through the album lyrics right before listening. I didn’t care for the majority of the lyrics in Remedy Lane, but they didn’t clash with my tastes enough to detract from my enjoyment of the music. These lyrics do. I think the album starts well, with an intelligent and sympathetic examination of what it is like to be abused—and it’s bold and important and cool that Daniel went for that subject matter at all—but from Ashes onwards it seems to devolve into vague and cliche-ridden psychotalk. Have people really been able to piece characters and a story together from lyrics like these...? Without outside help from interviews with Daniel, anyway? Dedication means something, and is earnest, but badly-written. I guess Her Voices is about bullying...? I get the feeling that all the songs mean something real and specific to Daniel, else it’s hard to imagine where the passion in the vocals could come from. But—and this is a common problem for inexperienced songwriters, certainly one I’ve run into myself—I don’t think he was able to transform these things that were meaningful to him into songs that could also be meaningful for others.
No, hold on, that is severely presumptuous. I’m sure the songs have meant a lot to many listeners. It’s not for me to judge if a song I consider grossly bland and cliched reaches someone on a meaningful level and creates real comfort and connection. But the Daniel of 2000 wasn’t yet able to write lyrics that could connect with me.
4th Listen.
Indeed, the album does sound better again at a distance from the lyrics. I’m enjoying a lot of what I hear. But it’s mostly a dispassionate kind of enjoyment, one I can remember accompanying many a past listen to Road Salt and In the Passing Light of Day...
I still by far prefer the Falling Home version of King of Loss.
5th Listen.
I like how In the Flesh comes to a full stop, and then Ashes begins by going right back into the In the Flesh rhythm.
I love the music-box keyboard (?) sound at the start of Morning on Earth.
I respect the animating spirit of Dedication more than I do the lyrics themselves, but I’m intrigued by some lyrical overlap between it and Icon. In Dedication: “I have feared this moment since I was just a child.” In Icon: “As a child, it worried me that all the ones I loved would one day die.”
I love the rocked-out version of the Morning on Earth riff in Reconciliation.
I don’t think there is anything I dislike musically on this album, other than the guitar solos.
Great interaction between the guitar and drums in the first half of Song for the Innocent. (I actually like much of the guitar solo in Song for the Innocent.)
And I’m very much struck, this listen, by things you encapsulated perfectly, Zaya, so I’ll just quote you:
“Also I was just telling Josh that I realize the struggle with ranking Perfect Element by song is that it’s almot really just one REALLY BIG SONG in many small parts. More than maybe any other PoS album, it’s more a complete-listen album and not an individual-song album. It’s SO DENSE and I think it’s very interesting and very layered but much less catchy and doesn’t produce as many individually solid songs since all the songs share pieces of themselves with other songs on the album and work as a whole together. In terms of musical connections between tracks, it’s probably the most connected. Like imagine those Ending Theme callbacks from Passing Light of Day showing up on the same album. But much more in your face ... It’s almost a puzzle. There’s really nothing like it.”
In its “one really big song” nature, it’s definitely brought my huge favorites Thick as a Brick and A Passion Play to mind, but while both of those are clearly a long song each, neither of them opt for the intricate puzzle structure of The Perfect Element. Even if I don’t end up loving (rather than, as I do now, liking) the music, I think this album will keep drawing me back to it through its structural ingenuity.
6th Listen.
Finally trying the 2020 remix! Overall it seems harsher than the colorful original, but the added clarity means there are so many extra parts to hear and enjoy.
I don’t think I like Idioglossia.
Really not big on Dedication, either. Early PoS ballads, what can I say.
But this is such a contrast with my experience getting to know Concrete Lake! With that album, I had to work really hard to single out tracks or moments of tracks that I liked. I’m experiencing a comparative level of difficulty here, but the difficulty is in finding things I don’t like!
Every time I reach King of Loss I like it, but it makes me want to listen to Falling Home.
I love how the remixed title track sounds. The catchiest vocal melody (“falling far beyond the point...”) gets blended beautifully into the surrounding instrumentation.
7th Listen.
First I need to note that various bits of the album are stuck in my head most of the time.
The transition from In the Flesh to Ashes is so great.
And nah, Idioglossia is fine. There are a lot of sections I like, such as the bit where there are fast drums over the Ashes chorus, and the drumming sounds like it has no connection with the rest of the music. I also love the chaotic riff right after that section.
8th Listen.
Enjoyed it. Didn’t notice anything new. I think that means it’s time to let it roast slowly deep in the back of the oven of my mind. I listened to Remedy Lane again today (the live version with Ragnar, granted), and while there were some things I liked less than before, I did find myself enjoying (!) Waking Every God, and loving Beyond the Pale far more than ever. So it would appear it does me good to keep away from these early PoS albums for a while, once my foot’s in the door.
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