PARADISE LOST: “ASCENSION”

(This is DGR‘s review of the new album from Paradise Lost, which is set for release on September 19th by Nuclear Blast.)

Ascension, the new album from Paradise Lost, marks the group’s first release of new material in five years since the heady days of 2020’s Obsidian. Paradise Lost have kept busy in that time since, with its members launching a bevy of other projects and working their way into music production and management, and the group themselves have even eased themselves into a bit of the nostalgia cycle with full-album performances of releases celebrating their thirtieth anniversaries.

Paradise Lost have seen and been through multiple eras, to the point where by both longevity and mark of quality the band have become a cultural pillar of the death and doom scene. In recent years, Paradise Lost have settled neatly into a sound that combined multiple eras for the band, letting Nick Holmes both sing and growl his way through crushingly heavy music, but even after doing so it had seemed like Paradise Lost were starting to stretch as far as they could with the style they had adopt on 2015’s The Plague Within.

Which may be why the five-year gap between releases might have worked in their favor because Ascension makes one hell of a lasting impression – even after many listens.

On Ascension, Paradise Lost sound newly rejuvenated – which seems to be falling right in line with the every three-to-four album refresh for our favorite collective of dour-faced UK gentlemen. The cost may have never been higher as all it took was the sacrifice of one drummer (not literally), one launched side project, one full album re-record in Icon 30, a different thirty year old album to be played live, and seemingly what little hair may have been left for the band. Given Jerry Cantrell’s take on the current lack of activity from Alice In Chains, at the very least Paradise Lost won’t be at any risk of being called out for that last one on the front of anyone’s acoustic guitar any time soon.

When a band is as long-tenured as the Paradise Lost crew, the discussion surrounding a disc often isn’t one about any new style or sudden shifts in sound but seems to spin around the idea of what sort of albums the band are combining to create the latest release. Ascension is an album that is like a shot in the arm for the band soundwise, but there has to be an equal amount of discussion put forth that this could be some of the most head-on hard-rocking Paradise Lost have done in some time.

Ascension has a handful of songs within its bounds that are deceptively simple and as anthemic as Paradise Lost could kick out, a sharp deviation form the mid-tempo crawl and misery intoning that have become the band’s calling card. These moments bring to life a surprising spectre, in one of Paradise Lost’s more-underrated albums Tragic Idol.

Tragic Idol is an album that upon release was suprisingly rock-heavy, with many songs that conformed to a higher-tempo song structure. The dramatic artworks of the album prior were still present but it was a release that was Paradise Lost going full arena-rock at times. This is why Ascension somehow seems to have its claws so deeply sunk into our skulls around here because Paradise Lost have found one hell of a way to split the difference between multiple eras of their career and as a result have ten tracks of both moody and hook-filled songs.

Ascension for the most part sounds as crisp as the last few Paradise Lost albums. The drums have taken on an absolutely thunderous air that has increased in intensity since the days of The Plague Within and each hit is enough to leave a footprint in concrete. Vocally, Nick Holmes sounds great and is often harmonizing with a double-tracked work or with some light effects that sound as if he is being pulled backwards into shadow when they aim for very high notes in certain tracks.

What did catch us on the back foot was just how loud the guitars are cranked up here, noticeably so. Paradise Lost have realized that there is a contingent of their fanbase that is there solely for the guitar melodies and leads, and they have sought to kindly oblige. Not to say this is a bad thing in any sense but from the moment the first lead hits on “Serpent On The Cross” it will be as clear as a lit beacon in the sky that there is a heavy, heavy focus on that particular element of the band’s sound.

It is stunning just how up front in the mix the guitar leads are at times on this album. Put it this way: If Paradise Lost are a British band with the album recorded somewhere in Britain and Sweden – 3,000 miles across a country and an ocean between us from my house – then Greg Mackintosh’s guitar leads are parked outside my house with a boombox raised over its head blasting “In Your Eyes” by Peter Gabriel. Sometimes, they’re even just as sultry.

Ascension is not an album with a major artistic throughline but it is a release that seems to deviate less from the set median that Paradise Lost agree to early on in the album than had been evident previously. Medusa and Obsidian both went wide of one another, and while they resulted in interesting songs and some strong retro-throwback in Medusa’s case, they weren’t quite in the same class of cohesive experience that Paradise Lost have achieved on Ascension.

The three lead singles from this album do a decent job of previewing the overall experience, as you could treat them as three archetypes that Paradise Lost then build on again and again. “Tyrants Serenade” finds itself a twin and mutual benefactor in “Salvation”, whereas “Silence Like the Grave” has a cohort in the rumbling “Deceivers”. “Serpent on The Cross” has a twin in “Savage Days”, and you can understand how it seems like Ascension might be spinning around a solid core as opposed to being a smattering of wild ideas.

That does leave plenty of room for the acoustic-moodiness to atmospheric guitar solo of “Lay A Wreath Upon The World” to become a mid-album highlight and “Diluvium’s” rocking two-step that follows makes for an excellent pairing at the middle of the album. It probably won’t come as a surprise then that many of the songs here get by on the power of having an excessively strong chorus to sing along to. Save for “Lay A Wreath Upon The World”, which seems to just permanently inhabit one’s brain at times, many of the most hummable moments on Ascension come from singing along to a chorus section of a song or an equally powerful guitar solo.

A newly revitalized Paradise Lost is a dangerous creature indeed. This far into a group’s career and they have somehow issued a release that falls well into the “I wouldn’t mind seeing them tear through this one all the way through live”, which is a feat to behold. By pulling across different eras of their career and turning them into a neatly tied-together experience, Ascension is Paradise Lost fully in their comfort zone.

But that’s the aforementioned dangerous part about a band that has a strong “comfort-zone”, when they’re able to settle into “what works for them”, Paradise Lost are capable of creating works that are both atmospheric, catchy-as-hell, and moody as could be. There’s a reason that Paradise Lost are one of the pillars of the moodier death, doom, and melancholy hybrid genres, and though they’ve changed their own sound plenty of times, Ascension by combining a lot of their strongest points makes a fantastic case for letting them keep that title.

https://paradiselost.bfan.link/ascension.yde
https://paradiselostofficial.bandcamp.com/album/ascension
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