Paradise Lost - Icon (1993)^{Release ID: 996}

I have a shocking admission to make ladies & gentlemen. Despite being a fan of English doom/death godfathers Paradise Lost from as early as 1991's "Gothic" album, I've honestly never regarded them as a top tier metal band. While I found Nick Holmes' death growls to be a highlight of the bands early material, I also struggled a bit with the very basic nature of the compositional work & a bit of inconsistency in the song-writing. In fact, I'd even go so far as to say that I've never really enjoyed releases like 1988's self-titled demo tape or even the band's debut full-length "Lost Paradise" for that matter, instead having to settle for some mild entertainment from "Gothic" & 1989's "Frozen Illusion" demo as far as Paradise Lost's early works go. Strangely though, I'd gone out & bought 1992's "Shades of God" third album on cassette upon release without really knowing what I was getting myself into. It was an another generally positive experience but saw Paradise Lost starting to transition into something a little different from the doom/death sound they'd built their reputation on to that time. Holmes' death growls had gone halfway towards a cleaner delivery &, in doing so, sounded a little awkward while the death metal component was all but gone with the album being better described as conventional doom metal with some gothic elements here & there. It left me wondering where these Poms would go with their next album but my interest in the band was obviously still alive as I would pick up a digipack CD version of 1993's "Icon" fourth full-length as soon as it hit the shelves & would eagerly consume it for several months afterwards.

"Icon" sees Paradise Lost having fully completed their transition into what's generally regarded as being one of the primary figures in the gothic metal movement. The attractive gothicisms of the cover artwork had a positive effect on me & was possibly one of the reasons that I committed to buying the album after not ever fully committing myself to the band's earlier work. The Simon Efemey production job represents another aesthetic positive for "Icon" with the record sounding really crunchy & bright which was a considerable improvement on his output with "Shades of God". It gave "Icon" a much greater level of accessibility than Paradise Lost's previous efforts which has probably gone a long way to explaining why I like this record more than anything they'd done previously. The band had kept the same lineup throughout their existence to the time which I'd suggest was also a contributing factor in their successfully having continued down the path of reinvention they were taking with each successive release too.

The biggest thing that I noticed about "Icon" upon first laying it into my CD player as a kid was that Holmes' vocals were different again from the ones I'd struggled with a little bit on "Shades of God". This time he'd dropped the growling altogether & concentrated on delivering some admittedly still fairly aggressive clean vocals that sounded very much like he was trying to be Metallica's James Hetfield in terms of both tone & phrasing. That's not necessarily such a bad thing though as he does suit the music around him very well. The problems start to become evident in his general singing abilities though as his performance is noticeably pitchy throughout the album, a flaw that I've definitely found much more difficult to overlook in 2024 than I did back in 1993. It was only after I'd finally accepted Holmes' vocal limitations that I began to see "Icon" in a similar way to that which saw it becoming a mainstay of my playlist during the mid-1990s. Musically though, "Icon" represents a noticeable step up in class for Paradise Lost with the song-writing being clearly their most consistently strong to date. Lead guitarist Greg Mackintosh has finally developed an understanding of his technical limitations & works within them with his leads no longer suffering due to his lack of theoretical understanding.

The sound that "Icon" championed is a little difficult to describe holistically as it doesn't really sit all that comfortably within the standard "gothic metal" model. For starters, the gothic component isn't all that strong although I've struggled to find a better descriptor for the album which seems to hover around a number of different subgenres. There are clear thrash metal & heavy metal elements at play here & I'd suggest that Metallica's "Black Album" was quite influential on the more accessible direction the band had decided to take, particularly given the timing of the release which came just two years after Metallica had changed the world with their monumental commercial success. There's a much doomier aesthetic to how they present that influence here though, without resorting to actual doom metal all that often. You should expect to hear a lot of chuggy, mid-tempo riffs that benefit greatly from the crunchy production job & are well served by the improved song-writing quality too.

"Icon" was easily Paradise Lost's most consistent record to the time & likely still is. On this revisit I've found myself gaining enjoyment from all but one of the thirteen tracks on offer with the wishy washy "Weeping Words" being the only genuine failure on offer. There are a few huge highlights for me here with the doomiest inclusion "Joys of the Emptiness" being my personal favourite. I was also blown away by the brilliant gothic closer "Deus Misereatur" which is a wonderful way to finish the album. "Colossal Rains" is another gem that takes me right back to my teenage years & it's been interesting that it hasn't necessarily been the tracks that I adored the most as a kid that I've placed up on a pedestal in my more mature age, although there are a number of other very solid examples of the more refined new Paradise Lost sound here too.

Going into "Icon" I was fully expecting to dish out one of my more elite ratings given the impact it made on me in my youth. After all, I still regard it as the best Paradise Lost release I've heard to this day. Unfortunately though, it hasn't quite delivered a top tier result, even if I have maintained my opinion of it as the band's finest hour. I guess I just don't rate Paradise Lost as highly as most other people seem to & some of that will no doubt be due to their lack of sophistication when compared to the other members of the Peaceville Three, both of whom I regard as being ultra-premium examples of their type. Still, there's no denying that "Icon" is one of the best gothic metal records I've ever heard & I'm somewhat relieved that it hasn't ended up dipping below its even more accessible younger sibling "Draconian Times" after all these years.

For fans of Tiamat, Sentenced & Moonspell.