{"id":142452,"date":"2025-09-17T01:59:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-17T01:59:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/142452\/"},"modified":"2025-09-17T01:59:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-17T01:59:08","slug":"paradise-lost-ascension-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/142452\/","title":{"rendered":"Paradise Lost – Ascension Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"As a huge fan of the salad days of the \u201cPeaceville Three,\u201d I felt obliged to follow Paradise Lost\u2019s career throughout the 90s as they shifted from their raw death-doom birth through the refined melancholic doom heard on Icon, the Metallica-adjacent, stadium doom of Draconian Times, and into their Depeche Mode fancier period with Host and Believe in Nothing. That last era was a bridge too far for me, and by the time they made their way back to doom on 2005s eponymous release, I had moved on. I only paid casual attention to their output thereafter until 2020s Obsidian. That one was solid enough to get me tentatively back on board, but I didn\u2019t come into Ascension expecting big things, just a solid late-career outing by a group of seasoned gloom-mongers. Ascension functions as a guided tour through the various eras of the band\u2019s 35 year career, and while that could make for a very disjointed listen given the amount of ground Paradise Lost covered over the decades, it feels like a well-catered reunion of dear olde friends. More importantly, it features some of the most consistently impressive songcraft the band\u2019s mustered in years. Age brings a certain wisdom, but sometimes you just catch lightning in a bottle. I\u2019m not looking to overanalyze which got us here, I\u2019m just enjoying the hearse ride.<\/p>\n

It doesn\u2019t hurt that Paradise Lost kick things off with one of the most aggressive and heavy songs they\u2019ve churned out in a long time. \u201cSerpent on the Cross\u201d is a massive, murderous slab of doom that kicks all the crypts and tickles the mortician. It\u2019s got mournful harmonies, weighty doom riffs, and the right amount of despair, yet it still comes hard with burly riffs and knocks you upside the head with a memorable refrain. Nick Holmes sounds born again hard, and Greg Macintosh and Aaron Aedy bring tons of heft and emotion to the string bending. This is my favorite Paradise Lost song since their heyday and I can\u2019t stop spinning it. In fact, as my beloved and perpetually hapless N.Y. Jets got pounded into assdust Sunday, they did so to the haunting leads of this charnel beast. This victory is followed by another in the form of \u201cTyrants Serenade\u201d which hits at the perfect middle ground between their Draconian Times and One Second eras. It even conjures a bit of Type O Negative magic courtesy of Olde Nick\u2019s baritone crooning. This one is an earworm infection waiting to happen, and you should catch it. \u201cSalvation\u201d is the big, epic doom set piece, and it doesn\u2019t disappoint, plodding and heaving for 7 minutes of morose glory while raising the ghosts of vintage Paradise Lost along the way. It even reminds me of Fvneral Fvkk here and there.<\/p>\n

With a front half this massive, it was almost inevitable that things would tail off as Ascension moved along, but Paradise Lost holds the slippage to a minimum. \u201cSilence Like the Grave\u201d and and \u201cDiluvium\u201d bring that Metallica-friendly Draconian Times sound back in force for inspired doom stomp and clompers, and even when they revisit their Depeche Mode as on \u201cSirens,\u201d they keep things just heavy enough to bull through painlessly. What\u2019s so impressive is that even though the band revisits all the familiar hollowed ground, things feel fresh and new rather than recycled. Somehow Ascension manages to avoid filler and there isn\u2019t a track here I\u2019d call weak, though \u201cSirens\u201d is merely good. At 51 minutes, the album never feels too long or bogged down, and most songs sit in the 4-5 minute window and move along briskly.<\/p>\n

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I\u2019m high on Nick Holmes\u2019 performance here. He sounds great and as versatile as ever, ranging from sadboi Goth croons to brutal death croaks and all stops in-between. He really gets nasty at times, even sounding downright funeral doomish. He\u2019s also got a great sense of where to put the melodic clean breaks for maximum impact. Greg Macintosh and Aaron Aedy outdo themselves with a high-quality collection of riffs that cover a range of moods and styles. They bring the doom hammer down hard on the maximalist cuts like \u201cSerpent on the Cross\u201d and \u201cSalvation,\u201d but also amplify the moody cuts to keep things pulsing with vitality. The subtly morose harmonies win me over, even on the more hard-charging numbers, and the level of writing remains strong with moments of greatness dotting the runtime.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s rare a band as long in the tooth as Paradise Lost uncorks a late career album that can stand among the giants in their catalog, but Ascension is one such slippery aberration. It\u2019s the kind of release your brain tells you shouldn\u2019t be as good as it is, but after a week-plus marinating in it, the quality cannot be denied. I\u2019m happy to see a long-running institution like Paradise Lost get another win and show they still have ichor in their cold veins. Ascension indeed!<\/p>\n

Rating: 3.5\/5.0
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Nuclear Blast<\/a>
Websites: paradiselost.co.uk<\/a> | facebook.com\/paradiselostofficia<\/a>l | instagram.com\/officialparadiselost<\/a>
Releases Worldwide: September 19th, 2025<\/p>\n

Grymm<\/p>\n

\"\"So, question: say you\u2019ve been a band for almost 40 years, and 80% of your line-up has remained completely unchanged, save for the near-Spinal Tapification that\u2019s reserved for whoever happens to find themselves on the drum throne. You\u2019ve gone from the slowest of death\/doom, to near-Metallica heights of superstardom in your home country, to a severe Depeche Mode-influenced left turn, just to wrap yourselves back around through Gothic doom territory and back home to death-doom in the wildest \u201cPeaceville Three\u201d ouroboros ever. You\u2019re also about to release your seventeenth album. With the exceptions of legendary acts, we\u2019re usually lucky to see bands craft seven albums, let alone seventeen. So what do you do to keep yourselves fresh and motivated? What do you bring to the party that will not only excite your longtime fanbase, but also hopefully bring in some fresh faces to your music?<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re Paradise Lost, you simply condense all of your experiences into a singular vision, and write your best collection of songs to date. Ascension lives up to the promise of its name, given how much of this album soars above its peers in both heft and hook. From the opening riff of \u201cSerpent of the Cross\u201d to the fading of the closing guitar solo in \u201cThe Precipice,\u201d 51 minutes of doom metal have never flown by so damn fast before, nor would it had the material been written by less experienced hands. Since a good portion of this album is DOOOOOOM (in all caps-locked letters, complete with at least 6 O\u2019s), that\u2019s no easy feat.<\/p>\n

And how DOOOOOOM are we talking? Take third track (and album highlight) \u201cSalvation.\u201d Between the foreboding riffs of Gregor Mackintosh and Aaron Aedy, Mackintosh\u2019s mournful melodies, and new\/former drummer Guido Zima Montanarini guiding the back-end like a funeral march, \u201cSalvation\u201d could have easily fit in on Strigoi\u2019s last album had it not been for Nick Holmes\u2019 vocal performance, whether it\u2019s in his cavernous growls, his anguished mid-range cleans during the chorus, or even the impressive higher-ranged singing towards the end. \u201cSalvation\u201d presents itself as a masterclass in epic doom\/death musicianship and songwriting, and one that\u2019s making a mad run for Song o\u2019 the Year honors come December.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not like there aren\u2019t any other challengers for that spot on Ascension, either. Late album scorcher \u201cDiluvium\u201d starts off as a plodding, downtrodden number, before riffing up a storm towards the song\u2019s latter half, with Mackintosh cutting loose with solo after solo. \u201cLay a Wreath Upon the World,\u201d one of the few Paradise Lost numbers to feature an acoustic guitar, pulls you in with hypnotic female wailing and pensive atmosphere. \u201cSilence Like the Grave\u201d and \u201cTyrant\u2019s Serenade\u201d bring the speed up just enough, acting as energizing mood-setters for the album\u2019s front half. And that\u2019s the only qualm I really have with the album; the album feels front-loaded with the faster numbers, with the album\u2019s second half being more moody and slower. There\u2019s not a song on here I would consider to be \u201cfiller,\u201d but it\u2019s an observation that stuck around even after the album\u2019s wrapped up.<\/p>\n

Paradise Lost have every right to dial it in right now, having cemented themselves as legends of death\/doom metal. Thank fuck they didn\u2019t, though, as Ascension has comfortably nestled itself amongst my top five favorite Paradise Lost albums, acting as a strong thread between the unfuckwithable Draconian Times, their underrated dark horse Faith Divides Us \u2013 Death Unites Us, and their return to the grave in The Plague Within. Who would have thought that, by reaching into their vault of classic albums, they would not only put together something fresh and timeless, but also make a strong case for one of their best ever? Easily a Top Ten contender, and one of the year\u2019s best doom metal albums, bar none.<\/p>\n

Rating: 4.0\/5.0<\/p>\n

\ufeff<\/p>\n

\n\tGive in to Your Anger:\n<\/p>\n