Pain of Salvation Road Salt: What if you choose the songs?!

[Pettor]

Hello!

I love Pain of Salvation. Really. Remedy Lane and Perfect Element are just some of the finest albums I know. The albums are consistent and flows perfectly between the songs and strong emotional landscapes.

When Road Salt came I really liked the sound but many songs didn't get stuck with me and the flow was not that great imo. I liked the idea of the first Road Salt to be the white (happy?!) one and second to be the dark ending to it all. However my feeling was always that the concept never became like that.

So my idea was to create my own Road Salt album by choosing the songs I want in a fitting order. I am not finished but it became a very fun exercise that I am still trying to perfect. My first draft is split into two sides. A - The Light Side - and B - The Dark Side. The whole idea is to travel from light to finally end up in the more dark (maybe crazy even) landscapes of the Road Salt songs.

Note: Some of the best songs are from the EP for me so I choose songs from EP, Road Salt 1 (extended) and Road Salt 2 (extended)!
Note 2: I somehow never got to place A Physics of a Gridlock in the list. Still thinking where to place it but haven't figured it out.

Draft 1:

A. LIGHT SIDE
=============
- What She Means to Me [0:49]
- No Way [7:08]
- 1979 [2:53]
- Healing Now [4:29]
- To the Shoreline [3:03]
- Road Salt Theme [0:45]
- Softly She Cries [4:15]
- Sisters [6:14]
- Of Dust [2:32]
- Sleeping Under the Stars [3:37]
- Innocence [7:12]
[42:57]

B. DARK SIDE
============
- Darkness of Mine [4:15]
- Where It Hurts [4:50]
- Break Darling Break [2:22]
- Road Salt [4:39]
- Of Salt [2:36]
- Through the Distance [2:56]
- If You Wait [2:49]
- Gone [7:54]
- End Credits [3:25]
[35:46]



This is not finished but I would like comments, other drafts, ideas etc. Maybe there are some other ways to make this even better

[Pettor]

Hehe and the album art is already figured out

[wolfking]

You probably could have popped this in the POS thread.

Nevertheless, both albums were big growers and I'm happy as they are to be honest.  I wouldn't mix them at all.

[Pettor]

Yeah I was thinking about that as well but I wanted a more focused thread for this specific topic (if people would like it). I found people in the normal DT forums tend to like creative ways of working with artists collections etc.

Also I agree that they are really good albums, don't get me wrong. I just enjoy this idea very much and specially the Dark Side is so fun to work with. Going from Of Salt ==> Through the Distance ==> If You Wait and finally ending up in complete darkness with Gone is enjoyable

[The Curious Orange]

Have you heard the new Remedy Lane Re:Visited? How does it stand up against the original?

[Pettor]

Have you heard the new Remedy Lane Re:Visited? How does it stand up against the original?

This is off topic for this thread (this I think fits in the normal PoS thread) but that one and the Remedy Lane Re:Mixed are amazing!

[Kwyjibo]

I also like the Road Salt albums the way they are, never tried mixing them up. And I like the first one better than the second one, maybe because the sound (for PoS) was new on the first and has worn of a little when the second one came out.

And I have a problem with calling songs like Sisters "Light Side". Craving your wife's sister isn't that "light" for me. Generally Pain Of Salvation songs aren't what I would call happy or light. There's almost always a deep melancholy and darker side in them.

[Lynxo]

And I have a problem with calling songs like Sisters "Light Side". Craving your wife's sister isn't that "light" for me. Generally Pain Of Salvation songs aren't what I would call happy or light. There's almost always a deep melancholy and darker side in them.

And sex. Lots of sex.

[ariich]

Agreed, Sisters is a really dark song.

[Pettor]

Well Pain of Salvation doesn't do "happy" or "light-hearted" songs and that is not what "light" suggest. I think the album art and my way of looking at Road Salt makes it easy to call it that. Also I loved that concept from Queen 2 and here it made even more sense.

I see Road Salt as a progression and always seen it that way. That's why this mix makes sense to me. I want the person of Road Salt to progress from the simple sense of craving sex (in this case) to complete acknowledge of sex. Sisters is simple in that way because it's all about craving and wanting, not understanding or being broken by it. Even the melody that accompanies the song is quite light (I know it's minor but still) and warm. Listen to Road Salt or Gone. That is another level of psychological darkness imo. Even the songs themselves sounds A LOT darker.

I always loved how Innocense ended with:

"We're all losing our innocence.
I want that invincible time, that invincible me.
I want it all back.
I want it all back.
I want myself back."

Gone was always the perfect ending to that story for me and Road Salt 2 never really lived up to my expectation of that continuation (still a great album). So maybe this is just me creating the story I always wanted from Road Salt.

Another example is why I have Of Dust on the "Light side" and Of Salt on the "Dark side". Of Dust is the sense of something and trying to understand (placed after Sisters because of those event the person of Road Salt is trying to understand) but Of Salt is the ackowledge of the cravings, what it has done and later in the story (of course placed after Road Salt).

[Mebert78]

I'm surprised you didn't include "The Physics of Gridlock."  That's my favorite song on either of the Road Salt discs.

[LordCost]

I'm surprised you didn't include "The Physics of Gridlock."  That's my favourite on either of the Road Salt discs.

I think he didn't put that song anywhere because he doesn't know where to put it, not because it's worse in quality than the others. It's my favourite too despite the ending sung in French which I don't like much. No Way, Healing Now and Gone are my other favourites of the Road Salt period (I don't know why Gone wasn't included in any of the two discs..).

I don't know how to help you in this light and dark division, I could only try to make only one cd of my favourites of both discs..

[seasonsinthesky]

Thanks to the discussion, I've retried both RS albums this week for the first time since I initially dismissed them upon release. My taste has evolved quite a bit since then, and I'm finding lots of great stuff I was too young/different to appreciate. Thanks!