Pain is back with a new record called I Am, and you can check out the single and video for “Don’t Wake The Dead” above. So why is there a reference to a panic attack in the headline? That’s all thanks to vocalist Peter Tägtgren and his experience hearing the song for the first time.

“The first time [my son Sebastian Tägtgren] showed me the song I was blown away, from the beginning to the end, so dark, yet so beautiful,” said Tägtgren. “After I heard the song I had a panic attack: ‘How do I sing on this? And what?'”

I Am is available here. On the past eight years and the comeback of Pain in 2024, Tägtgren elaborates: “The previous record Coming Home came out in 2016 – and of course there was a tour after that. In 2019, I released an album called F & M with Rammstein singer Till Lindemann, a project I left in 2020. In 2021, it was time for my death metal band Hypocrisy to get active with a new album Worship – and of course we toured again. If that wasn’t enough, let’s add that there was a studio album with Joe Lynn Turner in 2022… In other words: the last eight years have passed in the blink of an eye.

“After all this, it was the perfect time for Pain to go full force again. I felt excited to say the least. Needless to say, the success of [the 2022 single] ‘Party in My Head’ gave the album process an explosive start!”