
The punishingly bleak death metal on Paradise Lost’s 1990 debut Lost Paradise makes it the odd-one-out in a discography more renowned for gothic melody. But the five teenagers had only been together about a year before being faced with the challenge of recording their first record and, despite not having found their voice yet, they make a pretty decent fist of it. A lack of songcraft means it all kind of mushes together but they already have their doleful mix of riff and lead guitar down, there’s the occasional decent hook (“where is your God now?”), and the whole thing has a entrancingly subterranean atmosphere. And Lost Paradise has proven pretty influential in its own right as one of the earliest albums to slow death metal down to a miserable crawl. The Yorkshiremen would do much better with subsequent releases but fans of meat and potatoes death/doom could do a lot worse than check this out.
Aw man I remember CD’s all going this shape for a while. I liked this at the time, haven’t listened to it in a very long time.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yeah these cases really bug me. If they crack it’s a pain getting a replacement. And the double ones… aaargh
LikeLiked by 2 people
(Looks down from his ivory tower and pulls mocking faces)
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hey! It’s only matter of time before CDs come back you know! And then you’ll be well jell.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’ll denounce them as ‘unclean’ and ‘foreign’ in our new Brexit reality and everyone will have to burn them and listen to music on some entirely new, inferior British music format named after Churchill*.
(*prime minister, not the dog from the advert).
LikeLiked by 1 person
Honestly… you Welsh are all the same! Maybe we can press music into leeks? But it can only be Tom Jones and/or Shakey.
LikeLiked by 1 person
In other Doom n Gloom news have u heard the news Scott that Voi Vod won a Juno ( Canada’s version of the Grammy) last night?
Good on em getting recognized by the suits after 35 years!
LikeLiked by 2 people
No didn’t know that. Good on ’em.
LikeLiked by 1 person
They narrowly beat out Jethro Tull.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Where is your God now?
LikeLiked by 2 people
I sent him down to the shops. Do you need him for something?
LikeLiked by 2 people
Yes. Have him buy me a vinyl copy of Highway to Hell and take a selfie flashing the devil horns.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Those debuts that aren’t quite on par with the rest of the catalogue, like you said, are still worth a look. Radiohead jumps to mind for me
LikeLiked by 1 person
Good example. Motorhead and Priest spring to mind too. Not all great bands were fully formed from the beginning.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Man that riff combined with the bell at the start was somehow Sabbath. \m/ \m/ Based on that track alone, and not really having heard much else PL except on your site, I’d say these are promising beginnings!
LikeLiked by 1 person
It’s promising start definitely. Important, influential too. Still hear bands that want to sound like this. But PL did much better stuff later.
LikeLike
Oooft. They make a bit of a racket, eh? And that singer lad sounds like he’s a bit frustrated at something.
LikeLiked by 1 person
He’s from Yorkshire. I think that’s it.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Something about pudding?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Or Terriers?
LikeLiked by 1 person
That’ll be it.
LikeLiked by 1 person