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While awaiting the new work scheduled for September, this live recorded at Shepherds Bush Empire in London on January 26, 1998, and released by Music For Nations the following year, captures the decisive and, in some ways, most delicate phase of the band from Halifax.
Paradise Lost is a strange group, a seminal band in the death/doom movement in the early nineties alongside fellow countrymen Anathema and My Dying Bride (the Swedes Katatonia are in a league of their own...), and the quirky brains of the moody singer Nick Holmes and the dark master Gregor Mackintosh. It must not be easy, we believe, to live with an important and imposing past, and with the label of inventors of a genre, gothic metal, which will remain stitched to you for the rest of your days. Therefore, at least since 1991 (Gothic), whatever Paradise Lost have since created has inevitably divided critics and audiences. Well, because these blessed metalheads are also peculiar and never satisfied, wishing for a series of photocopy albums from their favorite band. Fortunately, Paradise Lost escape this perverse logic and immediately claim a creative freedom that has few equals in the music business. Indeed, who can say that one of their albums (some more successful, others less) resembles what has been done before? No one with any sense, I suppose. For better or worse, therefore, these boys should at least be credited with the courage of not resting on their laurels and making some extraordinarily courageous and unexpected choices. Like transitioning from Music For Nations to the major Emi and releasing the "Depeche Mode-like" Host in 1999; a stunning album in my opinion, but a real scandal among the most reactionary fans.
Well, this concert from the One Second tour captures exactly the moment before this turning point; and it very clearly bears the signs of the path on which the band would soon embark. In 74 minutes (a bit short...) eighteen tracks, half of which are from the latest, self-titled studio effort. Therefore, we already have the presence of samples (later used more extensively) in "Blood Of Another", in "Disappear" (horrendous, in my opinion), in the splendid and icy "Lydia" and "The Sufferer", and in the remaining ("Say Just Words", "Mercy", "Soul Courageous", "One Second", "This Cold Life"); but it is still in the older pieces that the Lost seem less "packaged" and more at ease. Four tracks from Draconian Times ("Hallowed Land", "Shadowkings", "Forever Failure", "The Last Time"), and as many from Icon ("True Belief", "Dying Freedom", "Remembrance", "Embers Fire"); finally "As I Die" as the only gem from Shades Of God, deliver the image of a band that at that moment perhaps seeks to shake off its past. Is it indeed surprising that Gothic is not performed? Fortunately, the English would later find a proper balance and an equilibrium that are still absent in this phase.
Another sore point, everyone plays impeccably (ah, how Lee Morris on drums is missed!!), but only the charismatic Aaron Aedy on rhythm guitar seems genuinely involved. The others, primarily Nick Holmes, stick to their task and nothing more. Those who know Paradise Lost know that they never give anything more to a show than their music, and that Nick is not exactly an entertainer. His words between songs are in fact literally counted on the fingers of one hand, and most often (as confirmed after seeing them live) he seems decidedly irritated and subdued. That's the case in this live performance. Too much Guinness, Nick?!?
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