ABSORBING THE PAIN - Songs Of Hate, With Love (CD)

Rambo Music, a new Swedish label that is really vacuuming the Swedish market for new interesting acts. Here’s another one – Absorbing The Pain. I had actually missed the debut by these Örnsköldsvik boys, but was quite blown away by Songs Of Hate! If Spiritual Beggars and Black Label Society would have a threesome in a concrete blender that resulted in a bastard child, this might be it. Heavy detuned riffs, staccato crunch and clean strong vocals riding on top of this concrete bed. I do like Black Label Society, but sometimes the songs kinda melt together and Zakk’s vocals become a bit tedious when he does his best to sound angry all the time. I actually liked him much better in Pride & Glory. Singer Jonas reminds me a bit of former Spiritual Beggars, Kayser later Spice And The RJ band/Band Of Spice singer Christian “Spice” Sjöstrand. Yes, the songs are really heavy and the album is quite consistent, but there’s still a lot of variation. The production is quite ambient for such a heavy album. The drums sound quite acoustic as a nice contrast to the mostly overtrigged drum sounds of today’s heavy bands, while the guitars really form a brick wall of sound. I will see Absorbing The Pain on the Rock Out Wild festival, and I’m really looking forward to it!
Janne Stark
Label: Rambo Music
Country: Sweden
Year: 2011
Link: www.absorbing thepain.com