UMUR
In Requiem is the 11th full-length studio album by UK doom/ goth metal act Paradise Lost. The album was released in May 2007 by Century Media Records. It´s the 2nd album to feature Jeff Singer on drums. The rest of the band are the usual suspects Nick Holmes, Gregory Mackintosh, Aaron Aedy and Stephen Edmondson.
The music on the album is doomy goth metal and as such no surprise for fans or critics. This is the unmistakable sound of Paradise Lost. So it´s as usual the little details that decides if this is one of their solid yet pretty standard albums or one of their better ones that occasionally touches excellence. Personally I was pretty fond of the more heavy direction the band took on Symbol of Life (2002) and I felt slightly disappointed with the solid but less heavy self-titled album from 2005. In Requiem is what I would call the natural continuation of the more heavy style on Symbol of Life but with less synths. This was actually, up until then, the heaviest Paradise Lost album since Draconian Times (1995). The tone of the album is pretty much set with the strong and doomy opener Never for the Damned and while not all tracks are as doomy or heavy as that one, the album is overall very strong and consistent. Unlike the last album I´m able to tell all songs apart after only a few listens.
The production is powerful and polished and suits the music well.
I remember In Requiem really gave me a positive surprise after a couple of years where I had lost interest in Paradise Lost and while there´s still a way to go before this album can compete with the classic albums from the first half of the nineties, I´d say In Requiem is one of the better albums that the band has released after Draconian Times and a 3.5 star rating is certainly warranted.