PARADISE LOST
In Requiem
Century Media
8/10
Over the course of the highly influential career of Paradise Lost, the group has dwelled in a stereotypical limbo, with each record delivered consistently reaching beyond the last in terms of creativity and substance.
What’s most interesting is that throughout all of the band’s experimentation with varied sounds, fans have largely stuck by the band no matter its sonic inclinations of the moment. If you were to play the band’s latest, the sprawling, gloomy “In Requiem” for someone that hadn’t heard the band since its Peaceville debut, “Lost Paradise,” it’s highly unlikely the listening subject would believe they were listening to the same band.
Having said that, the evolution of Paradise Lost has been gradual and prudent, yet even in the present day, certain parallels may be drawn to the band’s former works. Does that fact save blatant stabs at accessibility such as “The Enemy” from criticism? In many respects, yes, because no matter how much more commercial-leaning such tracks may be, the band’s music contains an underlying heaviness and sense of damnation that most other gothic bands fail to envision.
Many would note that the once doom/death outfit has been overshadowed by darker, more aggressive bands like My Dying Bride, but Paradise Lost has been in an entirely different headspace for some time now. In the case of the dim, melodic depressiveness of opener “Never For The Damned” and the delicately destructive “Beneath Black Skies,” Paradise Lost finds it’s current musical residence as being somewhere between Metallica and Type O Negative, with plenty of sullen majesty thrown in for good measure.
Continuing to reinvent its suitably down in the dumps vibe at each and every turn, “In Requiem” finds Paradise Lost once again proving there’s a immense amount of beauty to be found in the darkness of this world.
Written By: The Wizard
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