Artist: Paradise Lost
Title: Medusa
Genre: Gothic Metal
Release Date: 1st September 2017
Label: Nuclear Blast
Album Review
It’s difficult to attain renown, it’s difficult to maintain it and it’s difficult to experience the tidal turn. PARADISE LOST is one of the bands long enough on the scene and with guts to take their sound to different places to experience most of these trajectories of artistic life. With ‘Tragic Idol’ they’ve taken their sound to a classically sounding Heavy Metal, then with their fourteenth ‘The Plague Within’ they took it back to Doom, and here on their fifteenth ‘Medusa’ they flirt with Death Metal less Doom though it’s heavy on the despondent mental line, perhaps then it’s fair to say they’re a trio of “going-back-to-the-roots” albums - refining foundations... of sorts.
They chose ‘Medusa’ as they were fascinated by her symbolism and connotation as of “Attempts to avoid looking into her eyes represent avoiding the ostensibly depressing reality that the universe is meaningless”.It can be noted that in classical antiquity her image was also the evil-averting device aka Gorgoneion so though era-not-matching here but the artwork for this album suits it as it looks like a medallion - certainly it’s also quite an Gothic image (less of the beautiful art nouveau look of the artwork from their previous albums) to point at an aspect of their legacy.
The album starts with ‘Fearless Sky’ of which their singer Nick Holmes said: “I’ve always liked the expression 'the richest man in the graveyard’, as it sums up so much about life, our purpose for existence, and what all material possessions actually mean once we have gone. Yet, particularly in the West, adult life seems to be about accumulating meaningless things, or admiring other people that have accumulated more meaningless things than you have. In a famous film, someone's mum once said: ‘there's only so much fortune a man really needs... and the rest is just for showing off.' I also like that expression”. With followings songs they set their eyes on monotheism and unquestioning faith offering a version of faith that is less alienated from nature. So if you’re looking at having some food for thought there is that, even though I suspect that the band’s audience is always made predominantly of the like-minded people who more than likely pondered the same questions, some perhaps even further so preaching to the converted so to speak.
Musically I’ll pick out my favourite ‘Blood and Chaos’ - perhaps as I’ve recently been listening to ‘One Second’ album a lot as it also gives a nod to that direction of their catalogue. I’ve previously waxed lyrical about their albums, but I have to say this one doesn’t pull on my strings as much as I’d have liked it to, but somehow I can’t feel their heart in it: it lacks that creative connection and spark that translates to ignite the listener to feel involved in it. That is not to say that it’s not a great album, it definitely showcases their musical prowess and abilities, it is just a bit of an after creative peak album. What I’ll praise here are their latest lyric videos though, I will recommend them with more heart and oomph that I would this album.
Tracklist
01. Fearless Sky
02. Gods Of Ancient
03. From The Gallows
04. The Longest Winter
05. Medusa
06. No Passage For The Dead
07. Blood and Chaos
08. Until The Grave
Line-up
Nick Holmes - Vocals
Greg Mackintosh - Lead guitar
Aaron Aedy - Rhythm guitar
Steve Edmondson - Bass guitar
Waltteri Väyrynen - Drums
Websites
www.paradiselost.co.uk / www.facebook.com/paradiselostofficial
Cover Picture
Rating
Music: 8
Sound: 8
Total: 8 / 10
Comments powered by CComment