Obsidian… dark, reflective and black: it’s a pretty decent description of the music that Paradise Lost have been making over the last 32 years, even though this most resilient of British metal bands have stoically refused to be pinned down to one easily defined formula. Powered by a lust for creativity and a stout devotion to haunting heaviness, Paradise Lost have defied the odds by coming back stronger than ever over the past decade.
Formed in Halifax, West Yorkshire, in 1988, Paradise Lost were unlikely candidates for metal glory when they slithered from the shadows and infiltrated the UK underground. But not content with spawning an entire subgenre with early death/doom masterpiece Gothic nor with conquering the metal mainstream with the balls-out power of 1995’s Draconian Times, they have subsequently traversed multiple genre boundaries with skill and grace, evolving through the pitch-black alt-rock mastery of ‘90s classics One Second and Host to the muscular but ornate grandeur of 2009’s Faith Divides Us – Death Unites Us and Tragic Idol (2012), with the nonchalant finesse of grand masters. The band’s last two albums - The Plague Within (2015) and Medusa (2017) – saw a much celebrated return to brutal, old school thinking, via two crushing monoliths to slow-motion death and spiritual defeat. Consistently hailed as one of metal’s most charismatic live bands, Paradise Lost arrive in this new decade as veterans, legends and revered figureheads for several generations of gloomy metalheads. In keeping with their unerring refusal to deliver the expected, 2020 brings one of the band’s most diverse and devastating creations to date. As they march through their fourth decade as a band, Paradise Lost have never sounded more potent or unified in their determination to bring the darkness to life. Obsidian is yet another glowering career peak, not just matching the imperious form of The Plague Within and Medusa, but artfully outstripping it with greater depth, colour and emotional power. While many bands of their vintage have embraced the nostalgia business, Paradise Lost remain a vibrant, vital and endlessly classy force for creative metallic good. 2020 will see the band hit the festival circuit with a vengeance, before touring Obsidian in earnest next year. Like the man said, this is a good time to be in Paradise Lost.
