Scarsick

According to Daniel Gildenlöw, "Scarsick is much more band oriented and down to the core. Threatening and disturbing".^{[citation needed]}

The liner notes reveal that Scarsick is actually The Perfect Element, part II - "he". The album is divided into two chapters: side A and side B.^[5]

Scarsick is the second part of a planned, three-piece concept and the follow-up to The Perfect Element, part I. It continues the story of the male character from the latter album. Unlike its predecessor, Scarsick is a politically charged social commentary, and deals with a number of topics, including:

• Frustration (with society in general, and most of the things listed below)
• Consumer culture
• Materialism
• Industrialization
• Capitalism
• Commercialization
• American imperialism
• Conformity
• Idolization of celebrities
• Collectivist nature of religion
• Decline of civilization

Daniel Gildenlöw has revealed in interviews that the life of "He" is an allegory for all of mankind; that in him we see the problems of society on an intimate, personal level. Thus as The Perfect Element, part I deals with the subject of dysfunction in a psychological context that deals with the individual, Scarsick deals with them in a sociological sense and explores the relationship between the two. Just as the final song on the first part of the concept ("The Perfect Element") witnesses the falling of "He" on a mental level, the final song on Scarsick ("Enter Rain") sees him fall on a physical level.

Concept, music and lyrics by Daniel Gildenlöw.

The band offered an edited version of the album as a download from their official store in 2008. It also featured two new short tracks. Gildenlöw said on the release,

I had this idea about making edits where all of the songs would clock in under 5 minutes each. My absolute first idea was to make a radio edit version of the album, where every song would simply be cut at precisely 3:50 or something, except for the track America, in which we instead would add like 10 minutes of commercials after the "We'll be back after this short break!" phrase. But once I was sitting down with the tracks it became sort of a challenge. Some of the songs I prefer in the original version, but some (like Idiocracy and Mrs Modern Mother Mary for instance) really turned out more like I initially intended them to be, and I prefer them. Also, I could use my original idea for an intro to the album - it was scrapped for the official release since I felt it gave away the TPE1 link way too soon. The Slipsync track uses recurring themes, a trademark POS conceptual instrumental passage, and was originally thought as a Japanese bonus track, but then it felt more right on this edited album version, called SCARSICKER.^[6]

• Daniel Gildenlöw - lead vocals, guitars, bass guitar, banjos and samplers
• Johan Hallgren - guitars, vocals
• Fredrik Hermansson - keyboards, samplers
• Johan Langell - drums, backing vocals

• Official Pain of Salvation Website
• Official Scarsick Website at InsideOut
• Official Pain of Salvation Forum
• "America" at InsideOut Music