Paradise Lost Tragic Idol 2012

When hearing Paradise Lost, what actually we expected from them? Are we keep their nostalgic Gothic and Shades of God, the doom metal era as our benchmark? Or the Draconian Times and Icon era? My cup of tea is the later. Twenty years ago, Icon and Draconian Times were the album that stood very high above their era that these twin album still give me a very strong Gothic feeling right until now. So, when Paradise Lost announced their 2012 album Tragic Idol, these two memorable albums feeling are what I expected the most. Let not discuss their 'lost' era, in between Draconian Time until now.

Tragic Idol is an interesting album with mixed feeling. This album is so demanding that I feel extreme need to write a detail review here. So before we started I will concluded it first that Tragic Idol is so far their best offering that return to their respective two eras we identified before.

Solitary One, the opening song, started with interesting lick we immediately welcome to Paradise Lost music. The one sentence per vocal line is a hundred percent return and trade mark of Paradise Lost, or Nick Holmes vocal. The feeling is immediately in Icon era. What we got as compromise here is the howling backing vocals and the ping pong keyboard accentuation, we should understand this as Paradise Lost need of new sound.

 Crucify is one of interesting point here. After the doom intro, suddenly we un-expected have the 'catchy' riff with a brief of heavy metal grooving here. It's heavy and blistering guitar solos decorated all the way.

Fear of Impending Hell, the intro, the acoustic and clean vocal followed, this song quite successful bring us back to the nostalgic Icon era. Something with Honesty in Death.

Theories from Another World, is by far their most complexes, or should I say, complicated composition. It is a double pedal drum with thrash metal riff. Doom metal vocal but with a vocal line a bit utilizing death metal scale. Maybe one of most unexpected Paradise Lost song here.

In This We Dwell, is another surprise, Paradise Lost gone a bit with power metal scale riff and galloping chops. 

To The Darkness is another awesome intro and song. It return to Gothic feel, dark and heavier. This then break in Tragic Idol and Worth Fighting For, which are classic return to their sound.  The Glorious End, despite its blitz guitar lick intro, it is another doom feel song that perfectly close the album.

So, is this an album more about the past than about creating new sound? Dunno, but Paradise Lost has success in rising nostalgic in every track. All the songs are cleverly composed. The only thing made them "new" I think is the drumming part, all the rest pretty much return to their classic sound. I would say this is another surprising above performance by the veteran band in this 2012 year. Completely a must have album for Paradise Lost admirers.

Metal Harem class: ******** 8 stars out of 10

Paradise Lost - Tragic Idol 2012

buy the album here at Amazon

01. Solitary One
02. Crucify
03. Fear Of Impending Hell
04. Honesty In Death
05. Theories From Another World
06. In This We Dwell
07. To The Darkness
08. Tragic Idol
09. Worth Fighting For
10. The Glorious End

Bonus tracks (Limited Edition)
01. Ending Through Changes
02. Never Take Me Alive (Spear Of Destiny cover version)

Line-up

Nick Holmes - vocals
Greg Mackintosh - lead guitar
Aaron Aedy - rhythm guitar
Steve Edmondson - bass guitar
Adrian Erlandsson - drums

Paradise Lost artistic cover art for Tragic Idol - graphic design by Valnoir.