PARADISE LOST — Lost Paradise (review)

PARADISE LOST — Lost Paradise album cover Album · 1990 · Death-Doom Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
3.5/5 ·
UMUR
"Lost Paradise" is the debut full-length studio album by UK doom/ death metal act Paradise Lost. The album was released in January 1990 by Peaceville Records. The vinyl version contains 8 tracks while the CD and the cassette version of the album features the bonus track "Internal Torment II".

The music on the album is doomy death metal, but it´s not slow paced all the time. There are more up- and mid tempo sections on the album too, which means that I´ll actually characterize "Lost Paradise" as a death metal album rather than a doom metal ditto. The atmosphere is bleak and dark with heavy rythms and brutal growling vocals. Nick Holmes was always one of my favorite growling vocalists. Not only are his vocals fully decipherable, but at the same time they are brutal as hell and full of emotion. There´s no processing used to create the vocals either, which is great stuff to my ears. Unfortunately it would also take its toll on Nick Holmes voice, which he damaged several times during the early years of the band´s career with cancelled shows as the consequence. I guess art sometimes hurts. All tracks are more or less of the same quality and in the same style, so "Lost Paradise" isn´t the most varied album you´ll ever encounter, but there´s a delightful darkness here that you won´t find quite like it on any other album by the band. You´ll hear nods toward the more melodic lead dominated style that the band would develop over the course of the next couple of albums, but "Lost Paradise" is before anything else dark, heavy and brutal.

The musicianship isn´t that accomplished and I have to confess that the rather poor musicianship has kept me from enjoying the album for quite a number of years. It´s especially the drumming by Matthew Archer that hurts my ears. His playing is clumsy, uninventive and just keeps the music from having a natural flow. I find myself concentrating on his damn playing instead of concentrating on the music as a whole and that´s at times rather distracting.

The production suits the music well, but it´s a bit under produced for my taste. I wouldn´t call this lo-fi by any means, but the sound is very raw and sometimes sound like it was recorded in an abandoned basement somewhere.

...so after pointing out a few things that I don´t enjoy about the album, it might come as a surprise that I actually really enjoy "Lost Paradise" these days. This is death metal from a time when death metal was raw, brutal and heavy as hell and there´s just an undeniable charm about some of these late eighties/ early nineties death metal albums that captivates me. These guys sound like they mean it and that makes all the difference in the world despite the rather poor musicianship, underdeveloped songwriting and flawed production. So a 3.5 star rating is deserved.
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