PAIN NOTHING REMAINS THE SAME ALBUM STOCKHOLM, UNIVERSAL RELEASE: JANUARY 23, 2002 REVIEW: JANUARY 30, 2002

In his best moments, Pain makes you forget that he plays a kind of techno metal that has Rammstein and Marilyn Manson as predecessors. It almost sounds original and is quite enjoyable. In his worst moments, Pain makes me think of latter day Clawfinger and Swedish euro techno king E-Type. Listening to "Nothing Remains the Same", I bounce between these two polarities and can’t really decide if I like this likeable Swede’s new album or not.
"Shut Your Mouth" is a cool, catchy single, but unfortunately has the chant of some football-hooligans in the chorus, "Just Hate Me" is a nice enough song, but is followed by boring "Injected Paradise" and not-as-catchy-as-the-cover-made-by-Godhead "Eleanor Rigby". "Eleanor Rigby" also unearths another sad fact about "Nothing Remain the Same" - Pain, or Peter Tägtgren as his real name is, sometimes lacks in his skills as songwriter - a fact that is obvious when one gets the chance to compare his songs to one made by some of the masters. But, apart from that, a nice enough techno metal album with some cool twists.

KALLE MALMSTEDT