Paradise Lost - Ascension

Angry Metal Guy 80

As a huge fan of the salad days of the “Peaceville Three,” I felt obliged to follow Paradise Lost’s 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’t 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’s 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’s mustered in years. Age brings a certain wisdom, but sometimes you just catch lightning in a bottle. I’m not looking to overanalyze which got us here, I’m just enjoying the hearse ride.

It doesn’t hurt that Paradise Lost kick things off with one of the most aggressive and heavy songs they’ve churned out in a long time. “Serpent on the Cross” is a massive, murderous slab of doom that kicks all the crypts and tickles the mortician. It’s 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’t 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 “Tyrants Serenade” 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’s baritone crooning. This one is an earworm infection waiting to happen, and you should catch it. “Salvation” is the big, epic doom set piece, and it doesn’t 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.

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. “Silence Like the Grave” and and “Diluvium” 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 “Sirens,” they keep things just heavy enough to bull through painlessly. What’s 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’t a track here I’d call weak, though “Sirens” 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.

I’m high on Nick Holmes’ 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’s 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 “Serpent on the Cross” and “Salvation,” 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.

It’s 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’s the kind of release your brain tells you shouldn’t be as good as it is, but after a week-plus marinating in it, the quality cannot be denied. I’m 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!

Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Nuclear Blast
Websites: paradiselost.co.uk | facebook.com/paradiselostofficial | instagram.com/officialparadiselost
Releases Worldwide: September 19th, 2025

Grymm

So, question: say you’ve been a band for almost 40 years, and 80% of your line-up has remained completely unchanged, save for the near-Spinal Tapification that’s reserved for whoever happens to find themselves on the drum throne.¹ You’ve 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 “Peaceville Three” ouroboros ever. You’re also about to release your seventeenth album. With the exceptions of legendary acts, we’re 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?

If you’re 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 “Serpent of the Cross” to the fading of the closing guitar solo in “The Precipice,” 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’s), that’s no easy feat.

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

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

Paradise Lost have every right to dial it in right now, having cemented themselves as legends of death/doom metal. Thank fuck they didn’t, 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 – 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’s best doom metal albums, bar none.

Rating: 4.0/5.0



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