Paradise Lost To Reissue “Believe In Nothing” Album, Release New Lyric Video


On the heels of a successful launch of an expanded and remastered version of Host, Paradise Lost will now reissue their Believe In Nothing Album, from 2000. Dissatisfied with the production of that album at the time, Believe In Nothing has been remixed and remastered by Jaime Gomez Arellano, and includes new artwork, to bring to bear the bands’ initial vision of the album. They have also dropped a new lyric video for the new version of their track ‘Mouth’.Continue reading


Paradise Lost – Pallbearer: Live at Electric Ballroom, London


How to best celebrate that Friday feeling? With a night of slow and Gothic Doom of course. The Electric Ballroom in Camden, London, is full to the brim, and it seems the crowd is somehow wearing even more black than usual to celebrate the morbid tones of the UK’s very own Paradise Lost.Continue reading


Rotting Christ – Rituals


Rotting-Christ-Rituals ghostcultmag

 

Ever get that feeling that you should have done something much earlier than when you did? That is how I felt when I finally got around to listening to Rotting Christ for the first time via their latest, Rituals (Seasons of Mist). The Greek black metal outfit took me by surprise with this release as I ignorantly always expected a band with such a name to sound like your typical Norwegian black metal (read as: boring). In this instance, I enjoy accepting the mistake I made and cannot stop listening to this thunderous album.

Trying to pick my favorite tracks out of this album proved to be incredibly difficult as every last one carries its own personality and all are memorable. Alas, we start with the opener, ‘In Nomine Dei Nostri’, which literally sounds like a ritual. The opening has thunderous tom hits on the set while vocals are chanted over the top that sound like a call an answer between a shaman and his followers, hailing all of their deities. ‘Elithe Kyre’ may be the best song on all of Rituals. The chorus sections are absolutely flawless. The chord progression of the tremolo guitars on top of the thunderous drumming gives me goosebumps with every listen. The bridge into the solo is equally as awesome as we here some more tribal chanting/drumming before faces get melted by the solo. ‘For A Voice Like Thunder’ is probably the most black metal sounding song on the album (which also features Nick Holmes of Bloodbath/Paradise Lost fame on vocals). This track is just heavy enough at the perfect tempo that there is no need to toss in a zillion blast beats. The guitar leads are also incredibly catchy and I find I whistle them quite frequently.

Rotting Christ has easily earned a new fan with their release of Rituals. I will certainly make myself familiar with their previous work as well. As for this album, it is an absolute animal that is being released on our world that all fans of metal will witness their jaws hit the floor. At bare minimum, I can see this album being Album of the Month for February. As for end of year lists, it is going to be a competitive year, but I have no doubt in my mind that this monster of an album will still be hanging around.

9.0/10

TIM LEDIN

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Paradise Lost – Symphony For The Lost


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Set against a stunning and wholly appropriate backdrop of the genuine Ancient Roman Amphitheatre of Philippopolis in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, Symphony For The Lost (Century Media), a double CD and DVD package, is a culmination of a seed germinated and cultivated over a decade before being actualized in a unique and special moment for a band that has made a genuine and lasting impact on European metal and beyond, as Halifax’ finest, Paradise Lost, achieve a long-held ambition of performing with a full orchestra (the Plovdiv Philharmonic) and the Rodna Pesen choir.

Split into two halves, the first set is the band performing a selection of tracks specifically chosen due to their natural allegiance to classical music – accompanied by the full orchestra and choir – beautifully scored by Levon Manukyan, known for classically reworking Marilyn Manson and Judas Priest along with collaborating with Tarja Turunen.

While Paradise Lost’s music does lend itself to the swells, crescendos and additional trimmings expertly and subtly applied by Manukyan, containing a lot of space, it is particularly pleasing how compatible the partners in this marriage are. While Metallica’s S&M (Vertigo) was a spotted affair, the eight tracks of collaboration here are perfect bedfellows, with ‘Victim of the Past’ from The Plague Within (Century Media) in particular enriched by the additional melodies and strings that dance over the intro and weave into the tapestry of the song.

‘Tragic Idol’ is a classy opener, and throughout Nick Holmes is in good voice while Gregor Mackintosh’s distinctive melancholic leads intertwine with the strains and descants flowering around him, before we are treated to a jaw-dropping, mesmeric rendition of ‘Joys of Emptiness’; the iconic (sic) track truly resplendent in darkest majesty. The doom-grandeur of ‘Gothic’ is the natural conclusion to a special first half of the show.

The one nagging disappointment is that, as with exposure to any good thing, the desire is, naturally, to want more, and the second half of the set, performed sans embellishments, leaves you wishing that they had the same orchestral touches and enhancements, particularly as the backing tracks splice in synths, strings and female vocals. It’s a minor quibble, as the band polish off the latter nine tracks with style and panache.

Deliberately eschewing the option of being too dramatic or cinematic with the shooting, the direction is an understated warts-and-all that suits the band, as does Holmes dry self-deprecating between song wit. The overall release is truly completed by the brilliant Bulgarian crowd, as you can feel their love for PL, and their gratitude at witnessing something special, in their honest appreciation and participation.

Paradise Lost is one of Britain’s greatest, most distinctive and influential bands. Symphony For The Lost is a fitting addition to their career and a well-deserved achievement.

 

8.5/10

STEVE TOVEY


A Legacy Of Brutality Part II– Nick Holmes of Paradise Lost


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For such a modest gent, Paradise Lost’s Nick Holmes is one such musician who can remember the glory days of record label advances. Surely Paradise Lost wouldn’t have had access to bountiful excess, but they did indulge their rock star side. “When we started with EMI we hired Jane Seymour’s stately home to stay at while recording. We bought loads of studio equipment and had a chef and everything! It was great. That’s was the benchmark of success for us, you could get a fillet steak whenever you wanted! It was fucking ridiculous when I think about it but there was money in the industry and people bought albums! If you think its right or wrong, you get wrapped up in it because you have industry people telling you it would be a good idea. You can enter a different world easily. We did waste money on silly things and spent a fortune on booze! The bar bills were insane! It was a real cliché but we spent a lot of money on booze especially around the Host album!”

We dipped our toes in the pool of rock stardom but we never plunged in. It was like being Metallica for a day but then it was gone again. Now it’s strict budgets. I remember the first time we went to Israel and did all the tourist stuff and hung out. These days, you’re off stage and on a plane two hours later!”

Having invested Gothic Metal and created a memorable legacy, many bands have come and gone during PL’s career, splitting up and reforming on a whim. Yet Paradise Lost have endured and existed without such issues. “We need to make a living. We forfeited a life doing anything else years ago. We never had the time to have a couple of years off and reassess things. You could count the bands on one hand who could take five years out. You don’t shut down the shop just because you’re fed up.”

 

Such acclaim for Greg’s Vallenfyre project has been well deserved with a spark clearly ignited under Paradise Lost. Surely though at this stage in their career could talk of side projects been a concern to the productivity of Paradise Lost? “I didn’t know what he was doing on his time off. I didn’t know how much he’d got back into death metal. He asked me if I wanted to do the vocals but my head wasn’t in the right place at the time. I didn’t know I’d do it himself. It runs alongside PL fine. I keep missing their shows so I want to catch them.”

Considering Nick’s confession that he could have been a part of Vallenfyre, his involvement in death metal supergroup Bloodbath, were Holmes replaced Opeth’s Mikael Åkerfeldt comes as an even greater surprise. “It was a good two or three years after that. We’d look on the early days of death metal with great fondness. The guys in Katatonia are all four years younger than me, but that was a lot when you were all teenagers. We listed to different generations of death metal. They were listening to Deicide and I was more into the early Death stuff. The tape trading days were a great time, exciting and new. Anything that has happened with PL has been a gradual change. We had written the whole album before I did the Bloodbath stuff and already decided that there would be death metal elements.”

Vallenfyre, by Hillarie Jason

Vallenfyre, by Hillarie Jason

What must it be in a band with the guys from Katatonia, a band who have cited Paradise Lost as an influence? “Half the conversation who can name the most obscure band and who has all the old demo tapes. Jonas is very into that stuff. Bloodbath are weekend warriors, we get on a plane, play a gig then go home. It’s refreshing to play with new people and worked really well for us. Everyone is friends so there’s no negative.”

How Paradise Lost have kept relevant and free of nostalgia. “I never heard the term ‘The Peaceville Three’ until recently. We started before Anathema and My Dying Bride. I think Anathema played their first gig in Liverpool with us. As a band we don’t need to name drop or fit into a scene. We are institutionalised in making music. I’ve blown my chances of being a surgeon long ago. I could write a book but that would be about what I have done with the band. You never know!”

ROSS BAKER


A Legacy Of Brutality – Nick Holmes of Paradise Lost


paradise lost

Pleasant, unassuming with an endearingly laugh and a dry wit steeped in self-deprecation and sarcasm. Paradise Lost frontman Nick Holmes is the complete antithesis of a rock star asshole.

Early spirit in modern setting: “It was about catching the simplicity of how we worked in the early days. There is a temptation to overcomplicate things with technology unnecessarily. I think we have produced albums with lots of layers over the years, and we wanted to take a step back.”

It was nice to make things a bit simpler and capture the spirit of the old stuff.” Nick recalled. “There was a time when we were on EMI that it was all about writing singles, but we have always been an album band. As soon as you have to think about what is on MTV, it kills it. It’s nice to not worry about that anymore. We just worry about creating an hour of great music not what is going to get more rotation. At the same time we learnt a lot about songwriting. Not everything has to have a verse, bridge and a chorus.”

One moment on the new record which stands out as different is ‘Cry Out’ with it’s almost stoner rock feel. Nick explains how that one came about. “It’s got a more Sabbath vibe but then goes more melancholic. Greg (Mackintosh) has a truck load of those kind of riff but we don’t use them because they sound a bit too happy. It’s straight from the Tony Iommi School of metal.”

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The new Paradise Lost material is certainly in the spirit of the hallowed Draconian Times (Music For Nations) era, yet the Yorkshire act has dabbled with electronica and experimented with different styles which has received much criticism from some fans. Much in the way Metallica were for every post Black Album (Electra). Does Nick still stand by all the creative decisions PL have made? “When you start a band you emulate the music your idols play before you find our own sound. I don’t have that much hindsight with our albums because they are a reflection of where we were mentally. Everything we did made sense at the time. Everything that has happened in our own lives has had an impact on this band. It would kill me to make the same records throughout my career that would be so boring. In terms of Host (EMI) if we did it now it would definitely be as a side project. We were really into that stuff at that time so it made sense. I still think it’s one of our strongest albums sonically and has some great songs. One Second (MFN) is our best-selling album but that had a lukewarm response from some areas. Host was too much too soon for some people. We needed a change from the metal thrash mania after touring Icon (MFN) and Draconian Times for so long.”

These days artists changing their style or image can still be controversial to some but back in the nineties this was tantamount to treason! Recalling the reaction to the fan backlash he received at the time, Nick remains proud of the ‘Host’ record while being disarmingly honest when it came to the follow up. “People were outraged that I cut my hair and we wore eyeliner but I wear more eyeliner with Bloodbath than I ever did with PL! I didn’t think Host was weak but Believe In Nothing is a shrug album. We didn’t know what we were doing or where we were going. It’s just as well the internet was in its infancy around the time of ‘Host’ as that would have crashed our forum!”

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Over the course of their history, bar the drum stool little changes in line up. Nick spoke about how important it has been to retain such a stable line-up throughout their career. “We all get along. We are all mates and were friends before we started the band. We don’t hang out much outside of band time because we don’t live close to each other now. We came together from a mutual love of music when there was no one who loved extreme music. We still have a great laugh. You can’t get bored when you have thirty years of anecdotes!”

For the longevity of any relationship humour can play a part at keeping things together. This was no different for Nick and his comrades “It’s just how we are. We have similar upbringings and backgrounds. When you’re in a professional band as long as we are it keeps you young. It’s a respite from the rest of life. It takes us away from the horrible stuff. You can go to a gig, get pissed and feel better. We all look decrepit but we’re young in spirit.”

Taking of line-up changes Finnish drummer Waltteri Vayrynen will be filling in for Adrian Earlandsson on the bands UK dates next week. According to Nick, it was an easy choice. “Adrian has been very busy with At The Gates. Waltteri replaced Adrian in Vallenfyre and he’s a big PL fan so it was a great fit. He’s only twenty years old and such a great player for his age. In ten years he will be on the top of his game. People do many different bands, drummers especially. That’s how it is these days.

 

ROSS BAKER

 


Roadburn 2016 Announced with Neurosis And Paradise Lost, Lee Dorian Curating


neurosis 30th anniversary at roadburn

Roadburn Festival 2016 has been announced for next April 14-17th in Tilburg, NL. Headlining the festival will be Neurosis in the midst of celebrating 30 years as a band with a career spanning set, and possibly supporting their highly anticipated new album. Joining them will be Paradise Lost who will be celebrating the 25th anniversary of their Gothic (Peaceville) album with a full performance. Curating the weekend-long event will be Lee Dorian (Cathedral, Napalm Death). Dorian performed with Cathedral at the very first Roadburn. More bands will be announced soon and tickets have yet to be released.

Lee Dorian commented on being chosen as the Roadburn 2016 curator:

“I feel very honoured to be handed this prestigious task to curate Roadburn 2016. Having been involved with Walter on a personal level for many years now, I always felt like part of the family, as opposed to being someone on the outside. So, with that in mind, I was both shocked and excited when he asked me to take on this fantastic opportunity.

I promise to make this an event that no-one will forget, and I’m already frothing at the potential of possibilities available!! It’s a dream and one that I never expected. This is what I love, so I will not disappoint. Come and join us in this ritualistic nirvana of praise and offerings to the unholy Blind Dead. Templars Arise!”

 

Roadburn Lee Dorian

 

Neurosis has released a statement on being named Roadburn headliner:

“To be invited to celebrate our 30th anniversary in Europe at Roadburn is an absolute honor. Roadburn is a treasured and unique event that embodies the spirit of open minded community and original, emotional heavy music. We are humbled to be a part of it again” – NEUROSIS, August 2015.”

 

Neurosis, by Hillarie Jason Photography

Neurosis, by Hillarie Jason Photography

Paradise Lost’s Nick Holmes has also commented:

As a young band we spent a good deal of time in the early 90’s driving around The Netherlands in a small transit van, living off chips with mayonnaise, drinking Chocomel and playing stuff from this album. ‘Gothic’ totally reminds me of those days, so if we were ever going to play the album in its entirety in 2016, it has to be in The Netherlands, and where better than the Roadburn Festival!!”

 

Paradise Lost at Roadburn


Paradise Lost – The Plague Within


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The older you get, the more you realise that not only is “growing up” more complicated than you think, it sometimes looks like going back. In the mid-late 90s, bands were tripping over themselves to grow out of Metal – dropping the growled vocals, softening the sound and heading in a more self-consciously “mature” direction. Everything that lives, however, changes (apart from Lemmy), and the road ahead sometimes leads backwards.

When Nick Holmes announced last year that he was joining no-frills old school Death Metal revivalists Bloodbath it seemed to some people to have genuinely come out of nowhere, but the signs had been there if you knew where to look. My Dying Bride were very much ahead of the curve, reintroducing their Death Metal elements mere years after ditching them, but the others were catching up slowly – The King Is Blind, Vallenfyre (featuring PL’s own Gregor Mackintosh) and Bloodbath themselves all being formed by “mature” former Death/Doom Metal musicians. By the time that Paradise Lost – who had been steadily moving back to their heavier roots for the last several albums – announced that Holmes would be growling again on The Plague Within (Century Media), it can only have come as a surprise to people who’d stopped paying attention years ago.

That said, it’s important to start by understanding what The Plague Within is, and more importantly what it isn’t. Even in their demo days, Paradise Lost weren’t Morbid Angel, and this album should be best understood as a partial return to their roots. Ignoring the vocals for a second, the sound here is slick and melodic, the focus very much on big riffs and catchy choruses that most call to mind their Icon or Draconian Times (Music For Nations) periods. Songs explore the slower and faster ends of the mid-pace, but never really indulge in either. “Groovy” is a word that isn’t frequently used to describe Paradise Lost – and it certainly doesn’t fit every track on The Plague Within – but there are moments here where they almost attain mid-period Cathedral levels of swing.

Which is not to suggest that the rumours of their return have been overstated, just that they need to be put in context. The guitars are thicker and heavier than they’ve been in a very long time, and that adds a pleasing weight to even the catchiest of tracks. It’s not all catchy grooves, either – ‘Beneath Broken Earth’ captures the sort of forlorn True Doom grief-pride you’re more likely to associate with Warning or Solstice, and ‘Flesh From Bone’ has a genuine old-school Death Metal rumble that I genuinely never thought I’d hear from Paradise Lost again.

The vocals are the most instant point of focus, and they’re largely well done, shifting between mournful clean singing and the audible dry growl Holmes used so well on the recent Bloodbath.

It goes without saying, of course, that it’s not perfect. They’ve chosen to open proceedings with two of the weaker tracks, leaving the stronger ones to the end where the long running time means they’ve lost some of their impact. The vocals don’t always work – some of the clean singing sounds a little flat, and when Holmes isn’t pushing the full-on growl he sometimes settles for an awkward gruff-singing compromise that sits a little awkwardly. ‘Cry Out’ pushes the groovy-fun-party-Doom thing a little too hard and ends up sitting a little awkwardly on the album. Ultimately, however, The Plague Within is the kind of album that will stand or fall on the quality of the song-writing, and though it’s a bit of a mixed bag, overall they’ve done what they need to make it work.

Not a descent into the darkest bowels of harrowing Death-Doom, then, but expecting it to be would be rather silly. What The Plague Within offers is a sincere, heartfelt amalgam of older influences and current songwriting from a band who have always had the courage to follow their own muse where it leads them, even if it seems to lead them back.

 

7.5/10

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RICHIE HR


Paradise Lost go back to their roots on new album


Ester Segarra

That’s right… legendary British metallers Paradise Lost who, along with Anathema and My Dying Bride were known as the “Peaceville 3” who effectively launched the entire Gothic Metal sub-genre, will be returning to their deathly hallows on new album The Plague Within on Century Media.

The bands’ fourteenth studio album was produced by sound maestro Jaimie Gomez Arellano (Ghost, Ulver, Cathedral) at Orgone Studios in London has a planned release date of 1st June (UK & Europe) and 2nd June (US/Rest of World).

Nick Holmes comments: “We wanted to approach the new album differently this time by embracing the band’s VERY early days. We have written a very dark, yet melodic album, but this time many songs definitely have a death metal edge, which is something we haven’t done for a long long time in Paradise Lost.

In a move that follows Gregor Mackintosh rediscovering the vile in his side-project Vallenfyre and Nick Holmes seizing the Bloodbath cowl and mic stand, the band have been progressively returning to their traditional sound following their late 90’s/early 00’s dalliance with electronic music and minimal guitars, with 2012’s Tragic Idol reclaiming the hearts and minds of many of their old fans, while introducing the band to a newer audience.


Paradise Lost Releasing The Plague Within In June


paradise lost

Paradise Lost is releasing their 14th studio album titled The Plague Within via Century Media Records on June 1, 2015 in Europe and June 2, 2015 in North America. The Plague Within was produced and mixed by Jaimie Gomez Arellano from Orgone Studios in London (GHOST BC, ULVER, CATHEDRAL, ANGEL WITCH).

Nick Holmes comments:

“We wanted to approach the new album differently this time by embracing the band’s VERY early days. We have written a very dark, yet melodic album, but this time many songs definitely have a death metal edge, which is something we haven’t done for a long long time in PARADISE LOST.”

PARADISE LOST live:
Feb 20: Blastfest – Bergen, NO
Jul 18: Castle Party 2015 – Bolkow, PL
Aug 15: Summer Breeze Open Air – Dinkelsbühl, DE

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