Paradise Lost have been at this music business lark for a fair while now and have pulled off the still fairly rare trick of appearing to switch genres and styles numerous times over the decades, whilst still clearly sounding like the same band in their distinctive and dolorous way.
Whether it’s their highly original (at the time) underground Gothic Death meets Doom fusion of the old Peaceville days, to their more mainstream Metal sound (and subsequent chart success) during the MFN years, to their controversial flirtation with Synth and Electronica earning them the nickname Paradise Mode (or Depeche Lost if you prefer) as the 90’s staggered out, before looping back round to the start again as the millennium turned (albeit turned up to eleven to remind everyone who they are).
You never know quite which styles are going to predominate when a new album lands, and with Nick Holmes quite happy to switch vocal delivery depending on what works with the song (or at whim if playing live), it brings an edginess to every new record because despite retaining their distinctive instrumental signatures that scream this is still the same band at heart, anything could happen.
The only other band I can think of who managed that trick without losing their fanbase were Queen… I guess what makes this work under the hood is that with the exception of the revolving drum stool, the other four members of the band are still the original four from those first days back in 1988. That’s all down to chemistry, and that’s the magic glue that binds the best bands together and retains the fan loyalty no matter where the mood takes them in the studio…
Which brings me to Ascension, which really rather proves the point. That chemistry comes across loud and clear throughout Ascension, which for me feels like the clearest and strongest original album they’ve released for a while. I don’t say that lightly – these guys have retained my respect and admiration no matter which musical direction they have leaned into, and Ascension comes after a straight run of really rather strong records since 2015’s The Plague Within.
Which brings me to Ascension, which really rather proves the point. That chemistry comes across loud and clear throughout Ascension, which for me feels like the clearest and strongest original album they’ve released for a while. I don’t say that lightly – these guys have retained my respect and admiration no matter which musical direction they have leaned into, and Ascension comes after a straight run of really rather strong records since 2015’s The Plague Within.
It’s also been quite a long wait for anything new since 2020’s incredibly intense Obsidian, which with it’s almost clinical attempt to be the doomiest record of their career’s left me wondering at the time where else they could go. Although the pandemic and reclaiming Icon back from rights hell has kept them busy, this one has clearly been brewing for a while.
Normally their stylistic decisions apply to each album and remain more or less consistent throughout it, but Ascension boldly doesn’t stand still and mixes pretty much every distinctive experiment with their sound from track to track throughout its beefy one hour and a minute run time. It’s a stylistic compilation of the sounds they’ve worked with across the decades (with the exception of the Electronica which they have wisely kept to one side for the Host side project), yet each and every track is still Paradise Lost, clearly and distinctively. Homes’ vocals match this approach and he uses his full range to great effect across the album, and indeed within many individual songs.
The last few albums have been strong indeed, but not always consistently so, tending to have favoured tracks which linger on my playlist but very few replays after the release. But this one feels different. This one feels like a record that’s going to get played by me a lot moving forwards.
I’ve had this for over a week now and have struggled to write this review, because I’ve not been convinced that my usual couple of spins per album are going to be enough this time. This is a record where the gestation period has clearly paid off. It’s their ‘everyman’ record, or at least their every style record, as it runs the gamut of their stylistic catalogue, which means it doesn’t get a chance to stand still or get repetitive.
Every time I finish listening and start to write, I go back. Each time I am sure that this is probably one of the three best of their seventeen studio originals to date, as frankly I can’t fault a thing on here, and I still want more. Back of the net. 10/10
No comments:
Post a Comment