| Reviews for Paradise Lost's Faith Divides Us - Death Unites Us |
| Gothic/doom metal that doesn't suck! - 82% |
| Written by colin040
on November 4th, 2009
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| Paradise lost really released a damn good album here. It's perhaps their best album yet. Ever since their ''comeback'' album ''In Requiem'' came out, people claimed that they turned back to their roots. That album didn't impress me, but this album surely did. ''Faith Divides Us - Death Unites Us'' carries many elements with it that you the older Paradise Lost albums. I was actually surprised with the dynamic feeling of this album. First of all, it's definitely heavy. This isn't ''In Requiem'' that's full of strained vocals and annoying songwriting and structures. Here, Nick's harsher vocals sound full of power, enthusiasm and they actually sound harsh, just how they're suppose to be. During the heaviest vocal lines, his vocals definitely remind me of his ''Icon'' vocals, although they have definitely changed over the years. His clean vocals sound pretty natural, let's hope he can put them off live. Then, the actual songwriting is impressive! This album contains many unexpected moments. From the acoustic interlude in ''As Horizons End'' to the sudden melodic part in ''Living With Scars''. Yet, Paradise Lost never manages to lose their ''metal'' feeling with this album. The first sections of ''I Remain'' and ''Living With Scars'' are definitely a typical metal moments; the guitars sound heavy, there's an active drumming and the vocals sound rough. Heaviness isn’t all around, though. The titled track, ''Last Regret'' and ''In Truth'' are the softest track on the album, yet contain a typical atmosphere that makes it interesting. Greg's powerful riffage is always around, from his doomy, deep riffs on ''As Horizons End'' to ''First Light'' which contains My Dying Bride influences. ''Universal Dreams'' has a damn catchy ''Pity the Sadness'' riff, but quickly the song turns into something that wouldn't be out of place on ''Draconian Times''. Drumming isn't too far away from ''In Requiem'' but perhaps a bit more energetic. Some nice drum rolls appeared on ''Living With Scars'', but more than often, the new drumming is doing what he's suppose to do. Production is still modern but fits without a doubt. Is the bass essential? On ''As Horizons End'', it is without a doubt; the depth that it adds really nice and adds atmosphere. Highlights? The whole album! From the riff-storm ''As Horizons End'' with a cute acoustic interlude that breaks the atmosphere a bit, to the mid paced ''Fraility'' that's carry some haunting keyboard tunes. The self titled track is a nice break from all the heaviness and sounds very calming while ''Living With Scars'' starts fucking HEAVY! Greg's guitar riffs sound really crushing at times, also the melodic part sounds quite nice and the middle part is just fucking morbid. I'm glad that Paradise Lost proved me wrong with ''Faith Divides us - Death Unites Us''. It's a very dynamic album, contains a good musicianship and sounds so much better than ''In Requiem''. I recommend this album a lot and I’m happy to say that Paradise Lost proved with this album that gothic/doom metal doesn’t have to be cheesy and can actually have riffs and strong vocals. |
| If only they'd been doing this in the late '90s - 84% |
| Written by joncheetham88
on October 29th, 2009
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| The way I felt about Paradise Lost's output between One Second and their self-titled LP (inclusive), can be expressed by a quote from Trainspotting about Lou Reed's solo career: "It's not bad, but it's not great either. And in your heart you kind of know that although it sounds all right, it's actually just shite." Paradise Lost then returned with an album that could have been recorded in 1995, so authentically did it resurrect the austere grandeur of Draconian Times. The real test however was whether the band could continue to win the acclaim they enjoyed with In Requiem by creating similiarly excellent music, or whether it would turn out they had just found a bunch of songs from the Draconian Times sessions they had forgotten about. Firstly, the cover art kicks arse. A lot of bands are going for these etched-style black and white sketches at the moment but this one has just the right amount of bizarreness to catch the eye amidst the stone-like framing. An overweight robed man is unwilling pulled away by a skeletal pope, a morbidly comical image. It certainly looks like the cover for a great, dark album with a sense of irony, (not like all those bees, or that swirly orange thing on the black background. What was that shit?). The band are definitely in darker waters now. 'As Horizons End' is not only a crushing opener in the style of 'Enchanted' and 'Never For The Damned', but actually reaches further back into the depths of early '90s Doom for bleak and melancholy leads that wail across the rousing chorus. An immediate standout for the album and an indication that the band's return to the good ol' days wasn't just a bone thrown to the fans, but a serious bid to join the elite Doomers of the scene once more. The opening of 'Universal Dream' sounds almost like a slightly less evil Mourning Beloveth, before some fast rhythms kick in. Nice. Another reference to the genre of Doom is in quieter moments throughout the album (like the opening seconds of 'Frailty'), where solemn clean guitar sections remind of My Dying Bride and their biggest fans, Swallow The Sun. The leads on the album are one of its strongest points. The previous album, understandably, veered away from the catchy, but here there are plenty of well-integrated and memorable guitar melodies that increase the feeling of depression and hopelessness rather than detract from it, the best example being the nihilistic intensity of 'Living With Scars.' Not to mention Greg Mackintosh is actually playing riffs again now; the riffs on 'I Remain' and the unexpected tremolo motif on 'Frailty' are definitely geared towards some fun moments for those attending the tour that will support this album. The title track features some of Nick Holmes' best clean, melodic singing on the album. Elsewhere, the gruff howls he emitted on Draconian Times are used, and his opening verse on the first track sounds nothing short of pissed off. Often, for example on 'The Rise Of Denial', the aggressive vocal attack is tuned even deeper than that on In Requiem, if not quite to the death growls you will have heard on their Drown In Darkness demo collection this year - though there are plenty of references to those days. 'First Light' opens with the dull, effects-rinsed vocals he used for mid-era albums, before he switches to his deeper voice. I don't know whether this is a good idea, as it sounds a little odd, but it does the job of contrasting the band's sounds very well. The programmed-orchestra breaks on this track are a nice touch, adding a hint of fragility to a heavy song that features more than a little in the way of guitar solos. The themes throughout the album include pessimism and general British grumpiness, with a few of the lyrics seemingly constructed to complement Holmes' different styles of delivery. While the line "Till decayed, derelict down" uses an alliterated hard consonant and short, sharp syllables to suit the grating force with which it is growled, the chorus of the same song ("As horizons end/ ever to descend") uses nice, open words which are, accordingly, performed with more personal interpretation by Holmes. 'First Light' uses repeated phrases that are worked together in different ways throughout the song, with more usage of lines seemingly written for their aesthetic value rather than their meaning ("Redefine darkened intent" is a lovely phrase, but doesn't express very much, while "Weakened I'm worthless in chains" is simply a more poetic rendering of a pretty cliche Goth lyric). Paradise Lost are certainly excellent at putting a different spin on these lyrical themes however; the end of 'Rise Of Denial' features the word "Serenity" repeatedly bellowed by Holmes in a rasping, post-Hetfield roar, to great effect. It isn't entertaining throughout, but there aren't any tracks that are complete duds, just a couple that seem underdeveloped (the vocal melodies on 'Universal Dream' are rather unimaginative, and 'In Truth' is a little unsure of itself). The album also doesn't do an awful lot you wouldn't expect from Paradise Lost, but it does a fair few things you might not expect from them this late in the day. Although there is little deviation from a formula used by the band on earlier work, it is not a bad thing as it is the formula of their best material. Faith Divides Us benefits from older, more mature band members and an immaculate production. The latter goes a long way toward increasing enjoyment of the album; much like In Requiem, the mix features harder sounding guitars and drums than the ambient warmth that seemed, to various degrees, to suffocate the instruments on albums between 1997 and 2005. So while allowing a similiar level of clarity in the mix as Draconian Times, things are put together with the technical know how of today's studio producers, allowing an even more pleasing reproduction. There are a number of bonus tracks that you might end up with. If you are in Japan, you get 'Back On Disaster', which is a throwback to 2005 and a bit of a waste of time, while the Special Edition awards you 'Cardinal Zero' which pretty much follows the sound of the main album, and some orchestral remixes. Not a great selection compared to In Requiem's, but if you are a bonus track fiend and wandering which version to get, the Special Edition is cheaper and 'Cardinal Zero' is a better bet than 'Back On Disaster.' So to sum up, better production, plenty of honest hard work on the guitars and vocals, some of the best drumming on a Paradise Lost album ever, and although the melodies and techniques used across the album stick to familiar territory in general there are a lot of small touches that make this an essential purchase to any fan of the band, and a definite recommendation for 2009. This new stuff from the band should cause legions of younger fans to explore their back catalogue and the scene that it was released into. After years of being the In Flames of the quintessential trio of British Doom bands, Paradise Lost are keeping the spirit of the Peaceville Three alive again, long after leaving the label. It proves they are more than capable of making music that meets expectations, which itself begs the question why they haven't been doing that all through their career. (http://baileysmmcreamy.blogspot.com/) |
| Living with scars indeed... - 70% |
| Written by grimdoom
on October 21st, 2009
|
| One thing you can always count on Paradise Lost to do is the unexpected. This album in particular was a wild card because for all intents and purposes they could've reverted to something weaker akin to 'One Second - Believe in Nothing', but they didn't. For the first time in a long time Paradise Lost REALLY delivered something special. Two years after the bands "real" return to form they released something that while not their heaviest album is certainly the closest thing to 'Lost Paradise' that they've ever done. This album while still Doom, is almost more in the Dark Metal vein than anything else in their long catalog. The production has been stepped up, the intensity has been stepped up but its still lacking something. The production is as good if not slightly better than their prior album. The guitars are very heavy, happily chugging their way through the bulk of the material. The leads follow the same blueprint of 'In Requiem'. There are plenty of melodic leads and a few solos too. The band used 7 sting guitars tuned to 'A' on this recording. This is lowest the band has ever tuned. The riffs are very heavy and dark. They are very old school but with a modern twist, and while not as simplistic as their older works they are very sinister in their delivery. The only bad thing about their presentation is the distortion is very thin and painfully annoying as a result. Had the distortion been as fluid as it has been on the bands past three albums this album would be better. The bass is once again par for the course. Frankly, at this point in the game you'd think that Stephen would've spiced his style up but alas he hasn't. He sounds good regardless and his bass certainly helps the heaviness of each song come out. The drums are good but its obvious that their not Jeff's. Session member Peter certainly does get the job done admirably but they're lacking somewhere. There are no electronic sounds in the songs, thankfully their all organic. The atmosphere is very dreary but almost artificially, as if they were trying very hard to be "evil". Nick's vocals are probably as good as they're ever going to get (post 'Shades of God' anyway). His clean vocals are higher when used and sound great. For the more aggressive songs, his vocals are close to what was heard on 'Draconian Times' but perhaps slightly more deathly but not full on death. They are perhaps best described as as a cross between 'Icon' and 'Draconian Times' but with a more bitter edge. The lyrics are also very much in the vein of the first five albums, dark and damning; certainly one of the higher points of the album at large. This is very much a return to form without repeating or copying themselves. Sadly, this album is only half good, whereas the other half is bland and boring. Another down side would be the modern touches are just out of place. The poly rhythmic sections on "Living with scars" while good, after a few listens, sound somewhat forced and out of place considering the band have never tried to sound like Meshuggah. Interestingly enough Greg drastically changed his style of playing sometime around or after 'Symbol of Life'. Normally guitarist don't change their playing style or signature sound, but he did and its arguably just as good and captivating as his prior style. The new style doesn't sound like old Paradise Lost but its still Paradise Lost none the less. It's very rare when something like happens and as such an example for comparison cannot be given. This is a very good Doomdeath (for lack of another term) album and its very original; but sadly, as stated above, the songs just aren't all there. The band is trying to hard to be modern when they don't need to. This is still recommended to all fans of the band however. |