This is the eighth album by End of Green, so it’s not surprising that this album is presented with great clarity. Their production is geared to interesting rock songs with gloomy themes and gothic touches. They don’t need to rely on heaviness. Instead they concentrate on song structures and atmospheres in the same way as Katatonia, Mely, Sentenced, Fair to Midland and fellow Germans Subway to Sally, with all of whom comparison could be drawn at certain points.
It’s clear that End of Green’s songs are not uniform and so there is an array of different styles on this collection. It’s perhaps inevitable that some appealed to me personally more than others. Over the album I heard lively rock tracks, elements of post rock, blues and gloomy sludge. The three lumbering tracks from “Holidays in Hell” were heavy, dark, ponderous and frankly dull even with the post metal ring in the air on “Final Resistance”. The post rock/metal ring is put to better use on “Home on Fire” and in particular on “Don’t Stop Killing Me”. For me this was the stand-out track of the album. It is lively and magnetic with nice vocals and is at the same time calm and edgy. Its rhythm and flow are both good. Although there is a gloomy thematic slant, I detect irony and fun in this work. It’s all the better for it. “Hangman’s Joke” and “Chasing Ghosts” are both lively and bouncy pop-metal songs but the most interesting is “De(ad)generation”. Like the others it is catchy and has a happy sort of beat, shamefacedly flying in the face of the song’s dark theme. What makes it distinctive is its repeated chorus, which is simple and designed for us to join in with. On the other end of the scale, “Death of the Weakender” is like an old-fashioned rock blues number. It has real soul. The contrast that this album represented for me was conveyed on the last two tracks. “Miss Misery” is a gloomy acoustic rock song. In spite of some interesting guitar work, I found it dreary. “The Painstreet” is the opposite. This song has a post rock element but above all has feeling and atmosphere, personality and power. The build-up to the chorus is impressive. “The Painstreet” is like a 70s rock song with balls and variety.
“The Painstream” is an interesting collection of songs from a technically well-oiled band. There were more “hits” than “misses” on this diverse album but it was never in danger of overwhelming me.
(6/10 Andrew Doherty)
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