•
Rating:
How many who have loved this album madly, and still love it, could describe its thousands of positive and negative sensations and musings in just two words?
I believe no one. And rightly so.
We are talking about a work that for many, countless people, has represented the highest point and the pinnacle of the career of the band from Halifax, and, although released at the time for a market that was not yet mainstream, but rather "niche", it achieved such success as to inevitably project Paradise Lost into the Olympus of established and unapproachable stars of the "Gothic" genre.
And gothic is the whole atmosphere that permeates this album: from the first piano note of "Enchantment", to the last guitar chord of "Jaded".
Great and small upheavals of the soul accompany the slow and fast, furious and desperate, tragic and decadent steps of the twelve songs on this work. Nothing more than enormously cruel portraits of vacuous existences, without meaning, without precise direction, with all the necessary consequences and all the tedious realizations generated by them.
Every step is an atrocious stab to the side of the human person, here considered as a ravaged and decadent beauty, subdued and weeping, murdered of its youth, lost in beautiful, and therefore more painful, memories of the existence that was.
"Enchantment" is the exact and precise prelude to what "Draconian Times" represents: the evanescent and forgotten sweetness that moves in the immediate and present world of abuses, oppressions, and violence. In its masterful and at times almost epic progression, it then broadens into visions of a harsh and vibrant tone, with Nick Holmes obsessively repeating: "All I need is a simple reminder...".
As the abyssal world of Paradise Lost materializes, closing your eyes, absorbing the negative and grotesque energies of the opera's first subterranean groans, you find yourself lifted high, towards barren and unreachable peaks with "Hallowed Land", which demonstrates more than anything else, the talent of the members of this band, starting from Holmes' aggressive voice, to the incessant and varied drumming, to the scraped and slithering guitars, albeit extremely powerful, to the suspended solos of a piano that seems to come and go in the gusts of cold and intangible wind of the lyrics.
It is a constant disentangling in sulfurous and ancestral fears this album. Never a moment in which one can sincerely perceive a glimpse of relief or light: nothing. "The Last Time", which at the time was released as the first single, is perhaps the most driven and powerful track on the CD. Staggered and with a bass line clearly heard, almost stomping on the strings, it acquires what is called "awareness"; that, don't be fooled, of human misery and its impotence, and with a rabid approach, Paradise Lost make it clear that there is no other path to follow, no other purpose to imply, other than living in grief over one's pains and one's idiocy.
The traits, the profiles, then, of all this turmoil of objective pessimism, are well explained and exceptionally given in the cornerstone track of "Draconian Times": "Forever Failure" (which stirred much controversy, given the overdubs, at the beginning, middle, and end, of a phrase by serial killer Charles Manson, instigator among others, on the evening of August 7, 1969, of the heinous and abominable murder of Sharon Tate, wife of director Roman Polanski, then eight months pregnant, and of three of her guests at the actress's villa on Cielo Drive, Los Angeles) is the most caustic and desperate track that the Lost at that time ever composed; in it, as usual, there is nothing that refers to "normalcy", but rather an acidic rain steeped in the taste of dead or dying things, almost wishing to be an impossible catharsis towards distant and unimaginable shores of completed senses and no longer restrictions of any form.
The beauty of the track, which could alone represent as an example "Gothic" as a genre, is so great and disheartening that one feels uncomfortable trying to describe it, and only those who will listen to it, or have already listened to it, will be able to describe the immense pains it manages to communicate.
If I exaggerate, don't hold it against me, I certainly speak in a biased manner, but I have nothing else to say about how immense and dramatic this album is that, for me, marked the beginning of one of the most troubled periods of my life, that gave me the will, if not the desire, to achieve being who I was, and am, at this moment. As a seal of how much I am attached to Paradise Lost and this album in particular, some years ago I tattooed the famous crown of thorns with the band's logo on my arm, a sign that something, in the scratches and hidden and putrescible crevices of the Lost, was the same for me, and the connections matter a great deal. Continuing, one could make observations and launch probes into dozens of varied aspects for the subsequent tracks. I will not do it as I don't want to bore anyone.
I would just like that whoever, even with a distracted eye, reads these lines, manages to understand the sense, would wish to listen to this masterpiece and make it their own, just because, it's clear, it sends negative and leaden signals, albeit affected and modernist, to awaken everyone's consciousness, and to make us understand that the meanders of life are never, or almost never, roses and flowers, but rather thorns and chains, and no one can prove otherwise.
If the tracks I have mentioned do not seem to meet the height of what I have written, then, continue with "Shades of God", with "I See Your Face", with "Jaded"; it will make no difference: it will always be the voice of an abyss, near yet deep, that envelops you, but instead of from the arms or legs, it will grab you by the head and heart, and you will have no escape.
Tracklist Lyrics Samples and Videos
01 Enchantment (06:05)
Like a fever, fever - inside of me
Like a fever, fever - inside of me
Stand fast, faithful one
See the moon and not the sun but I......
All I need is a simple reminder
Breakdown frail affairs
Turn from the elsuive starts but I......
All I need is a simple reminder
Guilt is feeding, feeding, inside I'm cold
In depth grasp the chains
Struggle as the waters gain but I......
All I need is a simple reminder
Observe the formation fight until the battle's won
But I...... All I need is a simple reminder
There's no rule to say you'll cry alone
Just find the strength to help you carry the load
Reverse the frown and let the power surge
But when alone you cannot resist the urge
Feel it, feel it, like the pain of dying
Feel it, feel it, like the pain of dying
Hold on face to face damaged by the
sad disgrace but I......
All I need is a simple reminder
Twisting the knife in vain end the
grief but whol will gain but I......
All I need is a simple excuse
02 Hallowed Land (05:03)
You'd love to be so far away
It's not a long way to go, it's gonna end in your pain
Greet open handed stranger
Create the turmoil, you're not sane
I want the last one to go to embers will revive,
So stay
You want to live a life time each and every day
You've struggled before, I swear to do it again
You've told it before till I, until I'm weakened and sore
Seek hallowed land
Seek hallowed land
You'd love to see right through my veins
The pale reflection tells all, predominations sustain
Crawl over land or mountain in sight the ultimate escape
A silhouette subsiding, enticed unable to relate
You want to live a lifetime each and every day
You've beckoned before, you'll never do it again
You've prayed before who are the prayers for
Seek hallowed land
Seek hallowed land
Begone the fools that lead me - I need not to know
accept reclining spirit I need to endure
You try to live a lifetime each and every day
In this short time of promise, you're a memory......
03 The Last Time (03:27)
It's a struggle with a failures frown
And it crashes in front of me
I see the clouds divide
Will you stay or try to leave
The time you're looking at through the door
And think to walk right through
I want to ignore
I only wish that it passes soon
Hearts beating...
I raise a sunken smile
As I serve only the ones who served
What can I achieve
As you steal the air I breathe
A cruel misfortune
Forbidding is to see
When stories may collide
It's a sad state of mind
Hearts beating...
Hearts beating for the last time
Hearts beating it is a state of mind
Hearts beating for the last time
The peace you cannot find
05 Once Solemn (03:04)
Once solemn, the thing I'm leaving alone
Once solemn, the looks that turn one to stone
And I'm learning the highs and the lows of the panic inside
And I'm learning the highs and the lows of the fake promises
Your powers electrify me
Your prowess repels apathy
Your image can turn your soul to stone
I can't find another way
I can't find the words to say......
Unchaining the thing that's holding me down
And it's frustrating, the pressure's getting me down
And it's trying to live with a bad decision every day
It's a fever that's eating away in search for a fast release
Your powers electrify me
Devour the one that's guilty
Your image can turn a soul to stone
I can't find another way
I can't find the words to say......
Your powers electrify me
Devour the one who's guilty
Your prowess repels apathy
Your image can turn a soul to stone
I can't find another way
I can't find the words to say......
06 Shadowkings (04:42)
A spiral movement, the ultimate mystery
Will you show....will you show who you are?
It's the truth that untrue suspicion is
spreading like a disease
Do you know if it is real?
Voices appear inside my brain
Their need, to set me free
Onward they lead before the dawn
Teach me what's right and wrong
Encourage the madness they welcome impurity
I don't know....I don't know....who I am!
Fallen blind to the cruel hysteria that's
constantly challenging
Me, all alone...all alone... can't be real
Voices approve I can't relate
Their need to celebrate
Onward they lead before the dawn
Teach me what's right and wrong
Voices approve, the quest begins
Fuel for the shadowkings
Onward they lead before the dawn
Teach me what's right and wrong
07 Elusive Cure (03:21)
Take a pact, hide the fuel that's gathered here
Pale in view a fool resigns and taken over
Skin your pride , it's stripped and taken from you
Buried deep are the souls that are waiting for you
For you and only you, you may attempt to proceed
The sharpest point is aimed at you
Where the pain strikes is clear......
Regret, refrain, I can no longer bear it
Rising ages increase elusive cures
A morla life sacrificed, greed's taken over
Ride to take and the craving's buried deeper
Reaching out grasping arms that are waiting for you
For you and only you, you may attempt to proceed
The sharpest point is aimed at you
Where the pain strikes is clear......
Regret, refrain, I can no longer bear it
10 Hands of Reason (03:58)
I speak of people whose game is disguise
The myth of flavour appears with no sign
'Cause I see it coming, like a long lost friend
A temple of rubble, the low and blind betray
Inane, the pleasures that leave a sorry state
You're told of treasures, indulgence cannot wait
but wait for tomorrow and steal some sanity
Insane thoughts are borrowed, unable to repay them back
As I now fall......fall into deprivation
Fall....fallen there's still tomorrow
Love hides the things you'll never know
A lack of reason that makes a mortal man
Untold the treason, the past where it began
'Cause I see horror, horror to think about
Insane thoughts are borrowed, unable to repay them back
As I see the blood, blood on the hands of reason
Blood, bloody the hands that lead me
Love for the ones you cannot know
11 I See Your Face (03:17)
Coming back today, the pounding thoughts relay
It's a time that's for myself
I'm laying low, strife is gaining slow
A kind of anguish I don't need......
When I see your frown, hurt will put me down
If I could see a light shining
Is this borrowed time maybe a final time
That I can see a light shining
Will you make it slow, pure evil makes it slow
I know you're brandishing the sign
Dare I take a chance? In this circumstance
Or will I leave without a hope
When you seal me fate sorrow turns to hate
If I can see a light shining
Is this borrowed time maybe a final time
That I can see a light shining
What one man makes is there for one to take
A single handed fall from grace
Hearts beating just, beating till the last
A draining feeling's all that I know
When I see your frown, it becomes my frown
If I could see a light shining
Is this borrowed time maybe a final time?
That I can see a light shining
12 Jaded (03:27)
Opaque the dissident establishment
That we all suffer
Refill the porous shell with words that mean so many things
Words mean so many things
The feeling can't avoid you
Stoking the fires of absence
Loss and anguish long departed
Adjust to changes re-arranging, burns in many ways
Pain burns in many ways
The feeling can't avoid you
Loading comments slowly
Other reviews
By Rooster
The album does not bore; it manages to drag the listener through its melodies, at times dark and obsessive, over which Nick Holmes’ powerful voice hovers.
A constant characteristic of every track is an ethereal yet perceptible sadness, typical of Paradise Lost.
