Plague Inc.
Lost In Pain
•
March 6, 2015

I remember someone once telling me that in a lot of parts of Europe, they were 10 years behind everyone else for trends. This is bizarrely true in some places, especially when you see people wandering around in Fila tracksuits listening to GINA G (maybe that's a little more than 10 years now). This isn't really a bad thing but is certainly an interesting observation. It seems to be true of some genres of Metal as well, I've noticed that a lot of bands from the continent are either making serious evil Death Metal or relatively light-hearted, easy listening hard rock.
LOST IN PAIN fit rather snuggly into this second description. If you can get past the name, which I'll admit took me a while, the four piece from Luxembourg certainly have a good balance between old and new. They have been knocking around since 2008 and this year sees the release of their second full length studio album - "Plague Inc.". In amidst a world of musicians that all seem to be striving to be the best, most technical or simply the most offensive, they manage to stick out from the crowd by simply being good. It's refreshing to hear a band that don't seem to have any pretense about the music they make.
The music itself is like a bizarre hybrid of everything that was happening in metal throughout the 2000's. The guitars are for the most part pretty simplistic, with the rest of the band following suit and it doesn't matter one bit because it works. The influences of bands like MACHINE HEAD and BULLET FOR MY VALENTINE are easy to pick out in the chugging, power chords riffs interspersed with the kind of catchy lead lines that make this type of music burrow it's way into your head like some kind of unwanted parasite and simply refuse to leave. The opening of Sodom reminded me so much of later Nu-Metal that I had to quickly check to make sure I hadn't just fallen through some kind of temporal vortex and ended up in my teenage years again. The fact that they have a female bassist makes me immensely happy as well as this seems to be one of the few positions within Metal bands that women get the chance to take and god dammit they always do it well.
One of the only issues I really have is that the whole thing feels like it could be a mate's band that you would go to see just to show a bit of support for them. This is necessarily a bad thing, it definitely serves as a reminder that polished sounds aren't what it's all about and the rougher edges of bands like this can make for a much more human feeling sound. The other issue is the lyrics, this is one part of Nu-Metal that I try to forget as often as possible. It was all right when I was a brooding kid that hated everything and everyone (OK, so maybe that last part hasn't changed) but hearing people sing about addiction like some bad soliloquy just is not by bag anymore.
I'm not about to stand up and say that this is the best album I've heard. It is far from it but it is fun and that's what's important. All in all LOST IN PAIN - "Plague Inc." is worth a quick jaunt down memory lane (for those of you that have remotely fond memories of that period in history). At least it's not full blown Emo.
5 / 10
Mediocre

"Plague Inc." Track-listing:
1. Justify
2. Gone
3. Why
4. Addiction
5. Sodom
6. Care For What You Wish
7. Three Days Of Darkness
8. Devil In You
9. Greed
10. Dark Diesel
Lost In Pain Lineup:
Nathalie Haas - Bass
Luca Daresta - Drums, Vocals
Dario Raguso - Guitars, Vocals
Hugo Nogueira Centeno - Vocals, Guitars
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