"A Different Kind of Pain" is painful to listen to

Cold's latest album, "A Different Kind of Pain," is, unfortunately, quite a pain to listen to. The album is slow and mediocre, and it is nearly impossible to distinguish all but three of the songs from one another. The so-called "metal" band whines throughout the CD about broken hearts and lost love, sounding more like a soft rock group than anything even resembling metal.

Most metal and hard rock albums have slower songs on them, usually towards the middle and end of the album. After blaring music, pounding drums and screamed lyrics, along comes Track 7, where the band has a chance to show that they actually can sing. "A Different Kind of Pain" has several of these Track 7's. Eleven of them, in fact; every single song feels more like a special showcase advertising that Cold knows how to play the piano, or knows how to sing, or that they can be sensitive, but none of the songs feels like it belongs on a real rock album outside of that Track 7 position.The lyrics are overly sentimental to the point of being pathetic. In the second track on the album, "Feel It in Your Heart" (even the track name is wimpy), lead singer Scooter Ward croons, "I don't want you to pretend, I don't wanna be alone." But this isn't nearly as bad as the last track, "Ocean": "If the wind could bring the rain/I would save it all for you /Make an ocean to sail away and begin again." The songs just sound cheesy and are pretty much all about the same topic - a gone, but not forgotten, love.

The album differs extremely from Cold's previous one, "Year of the Spider." "Spider" had both metal and melodic tracks mixed in such a way that neither was overbearing. While that album had been more melodic than early Cold albums, it had still retained the best rock aspects of the band. This isn't so with "A Different Kind of Pain," which took the melodic trend way too far.

There are only three notable songs on the album - and only two of those are worth listening to. The first track, "Back Home," is actually one of the most rock-like tracks on the entire album, and provides a false hope as to the quality of the remainder of the songs. "Back Home" sounds more like Cold's old sound: singable, yet charged with emotion that does not come across as whiny. "Another Pill" is by far the best song on the album. A few low, repeating guitar measures give the song a feeling of resigned anger and sadness that works well. The song is also easy to remember and sing without being annoying.

The third notable song, the album's title track, is unfortunately only notable for how horrible it is. The first 1:06 of the song is a soft and boring piano melody, completely out of place as well as irritating. The rest of the song is sappy, whiny and slow. Ward sings, "I'm kinda like the waves that roll their whole life/Towards somewhere crashing it on the shore/That's blown in by the wind that carries the clouds/To hide my wish on a fallen star." This has absolutely no place in a "rock" album - its better suited for someone's high school poetry publication.

The only redeeming point of "A Different Kind of Pain," aside from "Back Home" and "Another Pill", is that the songs do make for easy listening and are easy to sing. The lyrics are easily distinguishable, which sometimes doesn't happen in rock albums. However, to be honest, the only time you are really going to want to listen to this CD is right before you go to bed so that you can fall asleep quickly.

Cold's "A Different Kind of Pain" is just a boring and unimpressive album that is a real disappointment. With their whiny vocals and soft melodies, the entire album is more like elevator music than rock. You would be better off spending your $16 on a new pillow than "A Different Kind of Pain" - it would accomplish the exact same thing, and a new pillow will never get scratched and stop working.