Welcome to part two of The Culture Tsar’s Paradise Lost retrospective. Today we’ll take a look at Paradise Lost’s dark rock period. The Culture Tsar has put together a Spotify playlist featuring two highlights from each album to help you get a sense of how the band’s sound has changed over time. Click here to check it out.
The “Dark Rock” Era
After the success of Icon and Draconian Times, Paradise Lost should have catapulted to megastardom. They could have gone on recording variations of those albums for years and enjoyed massive success. But they didn’t. Instead, they embarked on an artistic detour the likes of which few bands manage to pull off successfully. It was this stretch of albums that solidified Paradise Lost as the Culture Tsar’s favorite band. Any band capable of sounding like an evolution of Celtic Frost and the nastiest version of Depeche Mode in the same career with the same musicians is an accomplishment any music fan should take time to appreciate.
One Second (1997): From the opening track, you know this is something different from anything the band’s done before. For starters, vocalist Nick Holmes is actually singing rather than growling. The opening title track is simply gorgeous, one of the very best songs the band’s ever recorded. It doesn’t sound at all like a Paradise Lost song, and yet it’s also a perfect Paradise Lost song. The entire album follows this trend, never getting anywhere close to the heavy metal stylings of Icon or Draconian Times, much less the rougher doom metal edges of Shades of God or Gothic. But One Second is still very rooted in the band’s dark goth aesthetic. The best comparison The Culture Tsar can think of is the radical shift that U2 went through with the release of Achtung Baby. Although the album was very different from anything the band had done before, it was still very much a U2 album. The album was remastered in 2017 and it hasn’t aged a day. Along with Draconian Times, it’s probably the best entry point for new fans. Once again, the songwriting is superb, pushing the band in all sorts of new directions that never cease to be interesting or listenable. One Second was controversial at the time of its release, but it shouldn’t have come as a surprise to anyone who really listened to their music over the years. But nothing could prepare fans for what would come next…
Standout Tracks: “One Second”, “Say Just Words”
Host (1999): Here it is, the most controversial album in Paradise Lost’s catalog. Host takes the experimentation of One Second much, much farther. If metalheads were confused by One Second’s gothic stylings, they were absolutely dumbfounded by host, which sounds like the darkest album Depeche Mode never recorded. Synthesizers dominate most of the tracks, and the guitars are so heavily drenched in effects that you often can’t even tell they’re in the mix. Holmes’s vocals are incredible throughout the album, and it’s almost impossible to believe he’s the same guy who once growled his way through songs like “Frozen Illusion” and “Eternal”. The songwriting and arrangements are great, showcasing just how far the band had come from it’s sludgy, doom metal origins. Many longtime fans hated Host at the time and still regard it as a colossal mistake that nearly killed the band. The Culture Tsar, however, strongly disagrees, ranking Host near the very top of the band’s work. It’s so rare to find a band willing to take such a massive risk and succeed so completely in the process. Lots of bands try to reinvent themselves, but most of them fail. Although some fans never forgave Paradise Lost for this album, it was a natural progression from One Second and fits nicely into the dark rock aesthetic the band has established over its long career.
Standout Tracks: “Nothing Sacred”, “Made the Same”
Believe in Nothing (2001): This album is a bit difficult to talk about because the band pretty much hates it. Greg Mackintosh has gone so far as to say the album doesn’t even exist for him anymore. While The Culture Tsar enjoyed it at the time of its release, in retrospect it’s easy to see why the band wasn’t happy with it. The production doesn’t sound quite right and even the better songs sound like they should hit just a little harder. Taking a step back from the synth sheen of host, Believe in Nothing tries to bring the guitars to the forefront again, but something is a bit off with the songwriting. There are definitely some good tracks, but the band sounds unsure of what it wants to accomplish with them. It’s not a bad album by any means, but not up to the high standards set by its predecessors. A remixed and remastered version of the album is rumored to be in the works, so The Culture Tsar is hopeful that this album will get another chance to make an impact.
Standout Tracks: “Mouth”, “World Pretending”
Symbol of Life (2002): If Believe in Nothing represented a misstep, the band certainly regained its footing quickly. Symbol of Life took everything the band had learned over the last three albums and synthesized it with the hard-hitting edge they’d perfected on Draconian Times. The results are impressive, showcasing a band comfortable with one foot in dark electronic rock and another in gothic metal. It just flat out rocks. There’s never really been another album that sounds quite like Symbol of Life. The production is great and most of the songs are quite memorable. One of the big surprises on this album were the bonus tracks, which featured absolutely incredible covers of Dead Can Dance’s “Xavier” and Bronski Beat’s “Small Town Boy”. While The Culture Tsar is hesitant to crown any Paradise Lost album as his favorite, Symbol of Life is probably the leading candidate for the honor.
Standout Tracks: “Isolate”, “Pray Nightfall”
Paradise Lost (2005): The band’s stylistic return to form continued on their eponymous tenth album. While it’s still very much an outgrowth of Symbol of Life, Paradise Lost is darker and heavier, with a moodier goth aesthetic than its predecessors. This album featured quite a lot of orchestral arrangements, which gave it a bit of a soundtrack vibe at times. Greg Mackintosh once described Paradise Lost as sounding like everything they’d done up to that point and it’s hard to disagree with that assessment. While the album never quite veers back into doom metal territory, it evokes the dark aesthetic of some of their earlier work while maintaining the songwriting sensibilities of their later years. While The Culture Tsar likes this album a lot, it definitely feels like the end of an era. The band had taken the experimentation that began with One Second to its logical conclusion. In that sense, Paradise Lost is similar to Draconian Times. It would have been easy for them to churn out several more albums like this one, but once again, they decided to chart a different course.
Standout Tracks: “Forever After”, “Over the Madness”
Be sure to come back tomorrow for part three of The Culture Tsar’s Paradise Lost retrospective covering the “Neo-Doom” era.
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