When Daniel Gildenlöw found himself dealing with mental, emotional and physical health issues, he used the experience to develop Pain Of Salvation’s 2020 album, Panther. That year he told Prog about what he was trying achieve with the record’s music and message.
Writing music for the misunderstood is not exactly new. Emo was built on the chagrin of the disaffected youth and The Smiths’ enduring How Soon Is Now? is still an anthem for social anxiety. But this is 2020 and Pain Of Salvation are not flannel-wearing, shoegazing misfits hooked on teenage angst, and their frontman has a very good reason for dedicating his latest album, Panther, to “the outsiders.”
By his own admission, Daniel Gildenlöw – who was diagnosed with ADHD as an adult – has felt like an outsider since he was at school. But getting older and having responsibilities, in particular three children, including one with Down’s Syndrome and autism, made living with his situation unmanageable to the point that he felt no choice but to get tested.
“All of a sudden the context had changed so much. I knew I had a lot of quirks and weird things, but there were only dysfunctions left,” he says. “I think it was Ragnar [Zolberg, ex-guitarist] who said, ‘Maybe you have ADHD?’ I was like, ‘I don’t think I have.’ But he knew someone who had it, so I did a test and I scored amazingly highly.”
It’s thought that as many as 1.5 million adults in the UK have Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, but only a small percentage are formally diagnosed. For many the symptoms and effects are long-lasting; and even with careful management and coping mechanisms it’s still entirely possible to struggle with day-to-day living. In fact, for anyone who is not ‘neuro-typical,’ trying to feel normal is one big upheaval.
“I always found it weird to fit into a world that didn’t really make sense,” says Gildenlöw. “I would see a species that was focused on really weird stuff and doing really shitty stuff all over the world, and I could not relate to that. I could not relate to the typical gender roles either, the typical things you were supposed to be interested in, how you were supposed to act in certain situations, the white lies and the bullshitting. It just made me feel like I didn’t belong in that structure.”
Pain Of Salvation’s 11th album Panther comes with a manifesto for anyone who’s ever struggled to fit in; but dig a little deeper and it reads like a roll call of very personal dysfunctions. First it namechecks the “restless” ones (while Prog is chatting to him, Gildenlöw is pacing up and down his living room). And then it references the “motormouths.” Longtime fans of the band will know their frontman loves to talk.
“When I was at school there was never any talk of dysfunctions, diagnosis or medications. I was just a restless kid,” he says. “I would talk too much in class, and occasionally I would have to leave the classroom because I was not able to control my energies, or I would phase out and daydream. And that’s basically the personality I am today.”
Kids get diagnosed and start to look at themselves as dysfunctional… we’re treating them with more love but we’re defining them sooner
Since Pain Of Salvation formed in 1991 both the band and Gildenlöw – charismatic frontman, writer, multi-instrumentalist and co-producer – have secured a significant place in prog. But what makes them valuable isn’t their ability to tackle big themes with cerebral, intricate music, or that they write beautiful, evocative melodies with complex arrangements. It’s not that they dare to reinvent themselves on each new record while maintaining integrity. It’s that they manage to do all of the above and tell a story that is uniquely personal and human.
The recent portion of their career has seen them become increasingly introspective, and Panther might be their most personal album to date. It’s a brave and unexpected treatment of a real issue facing many today; it’s certainly not your typical prog concept. While 2004’s BE tackled the lofty subject of the existence of God and humankind, and their contentious Scarsick in 2007 took a route indebted to nu metal sounds, their latest outing has grounded the sense of displacement in a more tangible and human concept.
Asked if Panther is Gildenlöw’s ‘coming out’ album, he chuckles. “I have so many of those! But I see your point. It derives from Full Throttle Tribe on In The Passing Light Of Day, which looked at different scenes and different issues of my life as objectively as I could. The longer I live, the more I will learn about myself and my strengths and weaknesses. I can also understand better why we are the way we are and why we act the way we act in certain situations.”
Gildenlöw glides over the last few years of his life while omitting one major point. In the Passing Light Of Day – released in 2017 – was conceived when he contracted necrotising fasciitis, a horrific and life-threatening flesh-eating bacteria that put him in hospital for six months. So when he talks about issues and weaknesses, he knows the subject well. There’s also a selfless edge to this self-reflecting frontman. While his lyrics are philosophical and self-exploratory, they aren’t self-pitying.
The opening line of Accelerator, Panther’s first track, is one example where a sympathetic Gildenlöw sings: ‘I know what you’re thinking, I must be the problem here’ to the misunderstood cohort, like a supportive parent or an understanding teacher.
“Today I see so many kids that are brilliant and quick, who get diagnosed in third grade and start to look at themselves as dysfunctional,” he observes. “So we’re treating them with more love than before, but we’re defining them so much sooner.”
The music that on children’s TV was really complicated… good musicians were devoting time to making music for kids
Like those third graders, Panther has already been defined as “different” by fans and critics. A continuation of In The Passing Light Of Day, it harks back to the early years of Pain Of Salvation with a level of heaviness that eluded albums like Falling Home;but it also has electronic elements that are already throwing people off the usual scent.
“A lot of people will not hear this as a guitar-based album – but I’ve always tried my best not to give into fear about how the songs will be received,” he says. “Having a Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier sound… I grew tired of that so quickly. It was really cool for two years and then you have to move on.”
Panther might not have obvious guitars, but it feels heavy; and the scattergun rap-style vocals on Restless Boy along with the jaunty rhythms on Accelerator make for a visceral, if not sometimes unnerving, listen. Intentional or not, these jerky and jarring off-time elements draw synergy with the obsessive-compulsive and attention-deficient dysfunctions that Gildenlöw has been describing; but they’re also influenced by music from the 70s – albeit via a source readers might not expect.
“When I was a kid, the music that was on children’s TV in Sweden was really complicated, but you would never think about it,” Gildenlöw recalls. “It was very jazz orientated and symphonically arranged; you had really good musicians back then who were devoting time to making music for kids. I’m really lucky to have grown up during that era.”
He might hanker for the heyday of jazz-fuelled kids’ TV, but he’s lucky to be living at a time where the distribution of his own complex sounds can be enjoyed by the internet generation. “With any Pain Of Salvation album I just hope that people will listen to it in the first place,” he says. “After that the music will work on its own.”
