PARADISE LOST — Icon 30 (review)

Album · 2023 · Gothic Metal

3.5/5 · 2024-02-11
UMUR

"Icon 30" is the seventeenth full-length studio album by UK doom/goth metal act Paradise Lost. The album was released through Nuclear Blast in December 2023. "Icon 30" doesn´t feature any new material but is instead a complete re-recording of Paradise Lost´s fourth full-length studio album "Icon" from September 1993. It´s released as a celebration of the 30th anniversary of the original album release. Four of the original members who performed on the 1993 album release are still members of Paradise Lost and all perform on "Icon 30". The only member of the original lineup who doesn´t perform on the 2023 version of the album is drummer Matthew Archer who left Paradise Lost in December 1994 after the tour supporting the original album. Quite a few drummers have come and gone since Archer left, but the drums on "Icon 30" were recorded by Italian drummer Guido Zima Montanarini, who also plays with guitarist Greg Mackintosh in Strigoi.

Re-recording "Icon" could have been approached by a number of different ways, but Paradise Lost opted to re-record the album as close to the original as possible. I´m not completely sure why they didn´t take the opportunity to make a few changes here and there or re-arrange a few parts to make "Icon 30" stand out as a different version of the original "Icon" album, but my most qualified guess is that first of all the band are satisfied with the original album as it is and don´t really want to change it, and secondly they probably don´t have the rights to the original recordings, and the only way to make a profit off their own music (and one of their most popular and best-selling releases) is to re-record the album and re-release it. It wouldn´t be the first time something like that has happened. I remember both Flotsam- and Jetsam and Testament having done similar things in the past. I´m sure the band will also say things like they want to introduce the album to younger generations of fans and give other similar reasons, but I´ll go with my original qualified guess.

Meddling with an album release that many consider a "classic" can be a dangerous road to travel, but Paradise Lost have obviously taken great care that the atmosphere, guitar tone, and general sound of "Icon 30" is relatively close to the original album. The drums are a bit different (Archer was not the most accomplished drummer, so it´s not necessarily a bad thing) and lead vocalist Nick Holmes voice has changed a bit over the years, but it´s details and if the goal was to re-create the original album I´ll say that goal is reached pretty well.

I suspect though that for most "old" fans this re-recording is more a novelty release than anything else, as they will always listen to the original album before this one, making "Icon 30" a bit of a redundant release in their collections, but of course there´s always the hardcore fans/completists who want everything Paradise Lost have ever released. Personally I think it´s a lost opportunity to reimagine "Icon". Not that it really needs reimagining as it´s pretty much perfect as it is, but since Paradise Lost wanted a celebration, creating a new and different version of the album would have made more sense and would have given the fans more value for their money. There´s nothing wrong with the content, the performances, or the sound production of "Icon 30" and I´m sure lots of listeners are going to appreciate it but yeah...a lost opportunity it is. Still a 3.5 star (70%) rating isn´t all wrong.