Ash & Debris
The Enemy
Praise Lamented Shade
In Requiem
Unreachable
Prelude to Descent
Fallen Children
Beneath Black Skies
Sedative God
Your Own Reality
Ltd. album edition bonus tracks:
Missing (Everything But The Girl cover version)
Silent In Heart
Nick Holmes - Vocals
Greg Mackintosh - Lead Guitar
Aaron Aedy - Rhythm and Acoustic Guitar
Steve Edmondson - Bass
Jeff Singer - Drums
Century Media
Jeff dedicates this album to the memory of his brother Danny Singer
Produced by Rhys Fulber, mixed by Mike Fraser.
Recorded at Chapel Studios and Strait Sound.
2 reviews : by Matthew Haumschild and dalia di giacomo
"review by Matthew "Newbreed99" Haumschild___ 
The perfect example on how different a band can sound
with a different drummer.
Admittedly, I am a bit nervous about reading this because of the amount
of Paradise Lost fans that come to the site I hope to give an honest
review of this album from an occasional Paradise Lost listener. I would
also like to point out that the last album I had listened to from this
band was, “Symbol Of Life” so this is my first time hearing Paradise
Lost’s new drummer. And because SOL (no pun intended) was the last
album I had heard, I can only make comparisons to that album.
I will be brutally honest; I hated the first track, Never
For The Damned. It’s a good song, but it shouldn’t have been
placed as the opening track. Maybe on a single or an EP but not this! I
had to listen to the CD 5 times before I could get into the album. This
CD was in danger of being shelved! In other words, put on my CD shelf to
gather dust, until I skipped the first track altogether and just started
listening to Ash & Debris.
As illogical as it sounds, when I started skipping the first
track, the CD became more listenable. It flowed a lot better and that
still matters to me when I listen to a CD. Ash
& Debris has a much stronger opening sequence and it comes out
of the gate rocking after the keyboard intro. So, before passing your
own judgment of this CD, please, skip the first track and start out by
listening to this one first. This may be high praise, but I would
consider this song to be one of the best PL songs I’ve ever heard. The
lyrics are sung with such force that when I started to sing along I saw
why he was singing that way. The arrangements are just great!
Already, I was starting to hear the difference between SOL and In
Requiem. The largest difference for me is the drumming. The drumming
style is very different from their previous drummer Lee Morris. It’s
faster and the drum tones are higher pitched, especially the hi-hats.
The fills are also completely different than Morris, this makes PL
almost sound like a new band despite the same line up. I would consider
this the perfect example on how different a band can sound with a
different drummer.
The Enemy is what I
call an “Autumn song.” I call it that, because I could only picture
this song playing in Autumn. That’s just what I get from it, I can’t
quite explain it. This is a gothic song but it has some modern rock
influence to it. Of all the songs on here, this track sounds like it
could have been on SOL. It’s got hook like lyrics that make a person
want to sing along. The drumming and guitar playing is at a mid to fast
pace. It got me headbanging throughout the song.
Another song I could see on SOL or on, dare I say it, Draconian
Times, is Unreachable. This
song is a mid to slow paced song that is gothic again but still has some
modern rock influence on. I only say some because there isn’t a band
today that could have made this song except Paradise Lost. The song made
me feel melancholy, which is what a good gothic band is supposed to do.
The lyrics are sung with meaning and the rest of band is doing what they
do best. Greg Mackintosh also has a very respectable guitar solo in it.
Some of the things I didn’t like about this CD is that some of
the songs started sounding the same after awhile. The music would be
different but the lyrics would sound the same. I swear, I heard the
word, “children” in at least two songs along with the word
“enemy”. The songs that sounded the same didn’t sound bad, but it
was hard to report on some individual songs if they sound the same, no?
Knowing the album was recorded digitally, as is most things are
now a days, it actually didn’t sound bad at all. I actually have very
little to complain about. The mix was good, the production was good, the
drums could have had a little more depth but it was acceptable. About
the only thing I had a problem with was the song order as I explained in
my second paragraph.
Am I glad I bought the CD? Yes. Would I recommend it to new
listeners? Yes. It’s gothic in some spots, but gothic in a different
way than Icon was gothic. I’m not sure how older PL fans will take
this CD, but I liked it.
rating:
8/10
review
by dalia
"gryphon_spirit" di giacomo ___ 
"Memories of the years
that started the pain"
"The only thing wrong with immortality is that it tends to go on forever" (Herb Caen).
"In Requiem" (11th full length) sounds to me as the soundtrack of a life that goes on and on, almost condemned to existence, while everything is perishing around, while time and habits change, while people die and new generations grow up. Nothing remains at it was , you remember but cannot stop time from flowing away. If the previous "Paradise Lost" was an album marked by transparent aerial beauty, full of delicate chromatic rays nonetheless ambassadors of the return to metal, "In Requiem" is the accomplished work but a work full of anguish, sorrow, and imperishable stench of death and pain that you are sentenced to breath. "In Requiem" marks the total return to those heavy tones so much awaited from the "old" fans of the Gothic/ Shades of God/Icon eras. But no problem, the new acquired Goth Rock fans find enough stuff to please their taste. The result is the most obvious one, yet the most mysterious, so discussed yet never well explained: Gothic Metal. The Gothic Metal, founded, or co-founded, by Paradise Lost, exist and goes on although its boundaries are not well defined. "In Requiem" is essence of Gothic metal. Pity that a couple of songs just bitter the party. All in all, the metal sonorities are too bound to the band's old schemas, as if PL would express the will to play safe, but tracks like the The Enemy, Prelude to Descent (with a classic metal discharge in which i personally don't find any significance in the context yet is one of the most resolute and heavy moments of this cd ) and Fallen Children are , in my opinion, really arrogant . By the way, the first notes of the verse of Fallen Children makes remind me of the old Sentenced of Fragile ("Crimson") .
Better songs, although bridges launched between Gothic /Icon and
"Paradise Lost", are the monumental Requiem, the opener
Never for the Damned and the mournful, cold and highly melodic outro
Your own Reality. Your own Reality is the track that, more then
others, embosses in music a melancholic shroud of disappointment and
discontent.
But, in this album, there are also sides which are ace as if the Romanticism of Novalis and Byron
could meet the canons of today 's world. Praise Lamented Shade and
Beneath Black Skies are awesome works of absolute Gothicism.
Beneath Black Skies delivers impressive vocals and a brilliant guitar dynamism .
Subjugating is the insidious (and a bit catchy) beauty of Unreachable
(allow me this cheap trick with the words), Ash & Debris and
Sedative God. The latter giving also a good overview of the band's career.
Those who know the two bonus tracks
of the limited album edition will maybe agree with me by saying that Silent in
Heart is a nice song with a certain "verve" and very pounding guitars, a welcome object of uptempo sorrow that kills the grief
nonetheless. Missing (Everything But The Girl cover) is literally transformed into a disturbing ghost.
Some passages of the lyrics have enchanted me since long: take these
groups as example:
...memories of the years that started the pain...
....memories fallen years that
started the hate. (Unreachable)
or
...my ever needing soul, never wanted blood...(Ash & Debris)
...can you question why?
i wonder how eternally i'm blind... (Sedative God)
These groups of words, beyond their possible meanings, act like blades in the contest of their songs.
Definately other plus points are the absence of dance beats, the vocals
who are solid and mature, the well known deep ability, force and harmony of the rhythmic session,
the wonderful "drops" of piano, the very care in all details
especially in the musical background carpet, a dark impressive and totally proper artwork (again by Seth Siro Anton) and the Victorian retro
atmosphere of the photos supplied with the record. The limited digipak with alternative coverart
and black velvet box is 100% elegance and good taste, ideal brother of
the Special Edition Collectors' Box of "Draconian Times".
"In Requiem" is dramatic but not bombastic, sometimes catchy but not commercial, sometimes arrogant but not
too presumptuous. Sometimes deja vu, sometimes terribly attractive. Still
it's not the metal i would hear now from PL, but i actually cannot free myself from
Ashes & Debris, from Sedative God, from Unreachable.
Because these tracks are so sick, because these tracks are so magic.
Because these tracks makes me so fatally nostalgic.
dalia
di giacomo - 29.10.2007
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