Paradise Lost - Medusa

Published September 5 2017

*=Staff's pick	Fearless Sky Gods Of Ancient From The Gallows The Longest Winter Medusa No Passage For The Dead Blood And Chaos* Until The Grave

Genre	Gothic Doom Metal	Nick Holmes	Vocals
Tracks	8	Greg Mackintosh	Guitar
Running time	43 Min.	Aaron Aedy	Guitar
Label	Nuclear Blast	Steve Edmondson	Bass
Release	September 1, 2017	Waltteri Väyrynen	Drums
Country	England	-	Keyboards
Producer	Jaime Gomez Arellano
Similar bands	-

I live under the impression that people above all prefer this band's gothic metal period with Icon and especially Draconian Times from 1993 and 1995 respectively. Personally I really have a soft spot for the self titled effort [2005] and Tragic Idol [2012] as well and probably it's because those albums are sonically related to their most famous ones and located in the vein where the guys in Paradise Lost do best.

So, when they now have chosen to come out with something pretty similar to the albums Gothic [1991] and Shades Of God [1992] I can't say that I compliment them on their choice. There are some good moments in every song on the record, absolutely, but the up-tempo track Blood And Chaos is the only one that I would call a really good song. (See YouTube clip below.) I recall being present when an invited audience got to listen to 4-5 songs a couple of months ago and pretty much everyone rated this song as far superior and Nick Holmes saying something like "Perhaps we should make more up-tempo tracks then.". - No shit, man!

The album is very much more a doom metal album than a gothic metal album and Holmes is going back and forward between harsh and clean vocals with emphasis on the first style and makes it kind of darker than what it is. I hear Greg Mackintosh's well-known guitar playing in there, but it's not as prominent as I think it should be. As a matter of fact 3 of the bandmembers have told me that they have to change style every now and then or they would get bored and probably split up, but in this case creativity and ideas haven't made them choose the right path, I think.

This record, 30 times, start to finish. I assure you, it gets a bit better. Yet, people who like the gothic side of this band won't for the most part not match this kind of commitment and persistence and will most likely lose their interest long before they are getting close to that large number of spins. If you on the other hand love what they did on their second and third record, you will probably like what you hear on Medusa too. Just check it out once or twice and already at that stage you will probably decide if this one is what you want to hear from Paradise Lost in 2017.

Performance	Originality	Production	Vocals	Songwriting
6	8	8	5	3

Summary
4 chalices of 10 - Tobbe