While they have have perhaps not reached the household name status of Black Sabbath or Iron Maiden, Paradise Lost are one of the most influential and important metal bands to hail from our shores, and in many ways can be held responsible for the whole gothic metal subgenre, not least with their ground breaking ‘Gothic’ opus. Since those heady days in the early nineties, their sound has evolved with each album, initially straying further and further from their “metal” roots, and then more recently steering back to a more familiar sound culminating in the critically acclaimed ‘Obsidian’ back in 2020.
When they were straying from their roots, they explored a more electronic, goth sound, not least around the turn of the century on ‘Host’ and ‘Believe in Nothing’, and although the die-hards may disagree, these albums contain some absolute gems, even if they are largely overlooked in the live setting these days. While this may have seemed like a strange deviation from their death/doom metal roots, it will make perfect sense to anyone raised in the 80s, where alternative clubs often played a mixture of metal, goth, punk, new wave or anything else that wasn’t mainstream. This meant that although these factions were divided, they were all exposed to each others music and although they might not have admitted it, there was definite cross pollination.
It seems that Nick and Greg did not satisfy their goth/electronic itch through these dabbles with Paradise Lost, and they have gone further down this path with this side project, Host. The most striking thing on first listen is how familiar this sounds, and in fact many of these tracks would not be out of place on a Paradise Lost album, especially from the afore mentioned mid era releases. Nick’s distinctive vocals are central to the sound, as are Greg’s muscular riffs, but these are interspersed with moments of electronica such as on ‘Tomorrow’s Sky’ or ‘Hiding from Tomorrow’ and at times this has more in common with a goth or new wave album than a metal album. As if to prove the point, the album is brought to a close with a cheeky cover of A Flock of Seagulls’ ‘I Ran’.
Although this may have all ended up sounding a little twee or retro, the whole album actually works really well sounding contemporary and completely relevant to today’s metal/alternative music scene, and will no doubt be well received by the Paradise Lost faithful.
(8.5/10 Andy Pountney)
Leave a Reply