Pain - Nothing Remains The Same (LP) - Silver Vinyl

Peter Tägtgren has a gift for making heavy music feel like a late-night pop earworm, and Nothing Remains The Same is the moment that knack turns undeniable. The third PAIN record arrived in 2002, right when industrial metal and glossy electronic rock were crossing floors in clubs from Stockholm to Hamburg. It still hits with the same mix of bite and sugar. You get big guitars, programmed precision, and choruses that refuse to leave your head, all steered by a producer who knows exactly how to stack sounds for impact.

If you only know PAIN through Hypocrisy, it’s a little shock to hear how sleek this project can be. Tägtgren tracked and produced the whole thing at The Abyss Studio in Sweden, his home base, and you can hear that control in the details. The kick drum punches like a sequencer but breathes like a kit, synths shimmer around the edges, and the guitars arrive in thick slabs that never overwhelm the vocal. He keeps his voice clean and cutting, a dry, melodic delivery that lets the hooks carry the weight. It’s the kind of balance you get from someone who has spent years behind the desk shaping other bands, then turns the same tools inward.

Shut Your Mouth is the calling card and a fan favourite for good reason. It’s all barbed humour and swagger, an anti-anthem that still begs for a shout-along. The riff is simple and stomping, the chorus practically neon. The production trick is how everything slams without getting muddy, each verse snapping back to a taut pulse so the hook lands harder when it returns. It felt huge in 2002 and it still lights up a room now.

Just Hate Me leans into the melancholy, slow-burning on a minor-key synth figure and a steady, clockwork groove. It’s the song that reveals the album’s heart, where Tägtgren’s knack for a catchy line collides with a proper break-up bruiser. He threads small vocal effects and backing layers in and out of the mix, never showy, just enough to darken the edges. Then there’s the curveball that always catches first-time listeners, a rework of The Beatles’ Eleanor Rigby. PAIN keeps the isolation intact but trades string quartets for serrated guitars and synthetic strings, twisting the classic into something that belongs on a dim club dancefloor. It’s cheeky, sure, but it works because the emotion stays intact under the armour.

What makes Nothing Remains The Same stick is how consistent the writing is. The tempos shift, the moods slide from sardonic to regretful, yet the record flows like a set built for long drives and longer nights. Tägtgren stacks choruses like a pop lifer, but the verses have grit and small lyrical stings. You catch a line and think, that’s harsher than it first sounded. The sequencing helps too, easing the throttle at the right moments so the peaks feel earned.

Spin it on a decent setup and the low end rolls out in a satisfying way. The kick and bass work as one, the midrange guitars grind without frying your ears, and the synths sit like neon signage above the street. It’s the kind of mix that flatters a clean pressing, which is why Nothing Remains The Same vinyl has become a quiet favourite for people who like their heaviness polished rather than crusty. If you’re digging for Pain vinyl or trying to buy Pain records online, this is a smart place to start, and it pairs neatly with the records on either side of it in the discography.

It also marks a neat hinge in PAIN’s arc. Rebirth set the table, and later albums would push the sound toward bigger theatrics, but here the formula clicks. The songs became staples in European setlists, the videos found regular play, and the project stepped out from the shadow of Tägtgren’s extreme metal pedigree. You didn’t need to be a scene diehard to get it, and that accessibility didn’t blunt the teeth. That balance is harder to pull off than it sounds.

For collectors, keep an eye on reissues if a first pressing proves elusive. Pain albums on vinyl tend to disappear fast from local shops, and you might luck out flipping through crates at a Melbourne record store. If you’re elsewhere in the country, plenty of vinyl records Australia shops list it when a batch lands, so set your alerts and pounce. However you find it, this is one of those records that justifies the shelf space. Loud, tightly written, and weirdly uplifting for something so spiky, Nothing Remains The Same is the moment PAIN became more than a side project. It’s a proper pop-metal classic, built by a studio lifer who knows exactly which buttons to push.