Paradise Lost
Gothic

THE REVIEW

"Locked inside this peaceful tomb, entwined on seas of endless bliss…"

Just like Death, the band of the late Chuck Schuldiner, managed to fully encapsulate an entire way of conceiving Metal music by simply naming an album that has now become legendary, so have Paradise Lost. How many bands can boast about creating an inspiring album that has played an almost evangelistic role, especially, but not exclusively, for those bands that were just starting out back then and are now at the top of their genre? Very few now. Recorded with the support of a small orchestra, GOTHIC is one of those essential albums to understand the subsequent evolution of genres that were clearly influenced by it, namely the Doom of the early 90s and Gothic (and by Gothic Metal I mean the "true" Gothic Metal; not those hundreds of bands that, riding the trends, flood the market with albums of dubious integrity and value).

As usual, centered on difficult themes such as the pain and suffering to which the human being is condemned, lyrically the album is heavily influenced by Milton's poem titled "Paradise Lost," a wonderful work that narrates the events of the biblical Genesis from the perspective of man who unjustly pays the price for the desire for self-knowledge and the mystery of Life and Death with eternal pain and perpetual suffering. Opening the album is the title track, a true manifesto of the entire album. Holmes's terrifying growling proclaims words of despair mixed with anger, the compositions are leaden, and Mackintosh's guitars have such a dark sound that they fit perfectly into the track as piercing screams of pain, creating something majestic, refined, and haunting. Another innovative element is the use of the female voice that accompanies Holmes with good results in most of the tracks.

 The orchestra performs its task to perfection without ever overshadowing the band, and the result is tracks like "Rapture" or "Eternal," one of the fans' most beloved songs, a masterpiece of absolute level. Other highlights include "Silent" where Holmes sings with a voice that would make anyone pale, but above all "The Painless," perhaps the best track, a true black gem that represents the ideal synthesis of all the key elements of this grand and profound work, perhaps like never before concerning the Halifax group. The task of closing falls to "Desolate," an entirely orchestral instrumental that ends this gem in the darkest way possible because in the end all you will hear is the faint sound of a mourning bell…