Paradise Lost
Reflection
Intro
This retrospective spans our first 10 years together and our six albums. It references where we were in our career that has seen us redevelop and evolve with each album. From the primal recordings of
Lost Paradise to the polished maturity of 1997's 'One Second' we feel that we have assembled a tracklisting though not chronological that represents an insight into our first decade. We don't regret
or try to disguise anything we've done. Each album represents what we wanted to hear at the time and the music of Paradise Lost will develop as our influences, musical ideas and goals change...
In the live tradition we have decided to use SAY JUST WORDS: "This is one of the One Second songs we immediately knew would work out to be a set opener with those wonderful "chugging" guitars riffs
that we love so much and the anthemic chorus, a personal favourite from the start".
Hallowed Land
Transcending into HALLOWED LAND: "We like this song as a live track, but here we have a song that came into it's own once the 'now boy' Lee added a couple of all - beat grooves and ghost strokes that
kept this song driving along so well, not bad going really considering he had only joined the band 3 weeks before we went into the studio!
True Belief
With TRUE BELIEF: We made a landmark video that was partly filmed in Estonia and soon became a live favourite, so much so that our French label released True Belief '97 with a different mix. Holmes states that this song has continually caused him problems to sing live. 'I don't think I've ever sung the chorus in tune".
Pity the Sadness
PITY THE SADNESS with Simon Efemey at the helm saw our overall sound veering towards the harder metal approach. This is a fist banging classic, always well received wen we perform it live. "The crowd always sings the the first chorus giving me a break' says Holmes.
Eternal
"This was the first "HIT !!!" of sort for us, as this was a really well accepted song throughout the European gig circuit that we had started to concentrate on heavily. We drew our influences for this song from Gothic bands of the '80's. On the album this signifies a change in direction and development due to the Gothic mood we adopted in conjunction with our previous influences.
The impression of the '80's genre remains strongly with us to this very day. It even got on the front covers of some of the European metal mags. Happy memories of slumming round the world in a transit van with all the equipment and 12 filthy sweaty friends praying for a food stop, the toilet and a shower!
Forever Failure
This was written on a day off when none of the crew could got any dope. "I found it amazing how people become reliant on petty things for their well-being, and this made me think how small minded people can be." Holmes remembers. Probably the best song we have ever written jointly.
We were trying to think of something to add to the song and Greg thought spoken word would be fitting so we went off and tried a variety of things including the Hamlet speech from the end of "Withnail & I" (One of the best films ever). Around this time Nick saw a documentary with Charles Manson and the words were strangely suitable, they seemed to have the sane/insane quality we were looking for as atmospherics.
On this single remix we hired in a professional orchostrater and she did a I wonderful job of adding a grandiose pomposity that this song almost commanded. Draconian Times marked the end of an era. Altough the album was hugely successful we felt there was no way we could repeat this formula to the same response. It was time to either break up or move forward.
Gothic
This song leaned heavily on the influence of Celtic Frost by using female vocals for the melody to contrast to the harsher male vocal. On release, Gothic spawned a remarkable number of plagiarists and still does today. We invited female vocalists to send in demo tapes, from which we chose Sarah Marion.
I don't think she was a fan of our genre of music particularly, but of all the tapes we received her voice had the sad quality we were looking for - it turned out she was a good laugh and the vocals were great but then we spent the next four years or so answering questions like "Where is the female vocalist", we made trouble for ourselves but it was worth it for the end result. We also had the talents of Keith Appleton on Ivories again, cheers Keith.
One Second
A good example of how the song's more important than any one instrument, the combination of percussion, keyboards and live musicians blended well together with simple but infectious singing lines can make a killer song. This song shows us trying to achieve personal musical satisfaction without compromise. If this is regarded as a sell out then how is music ever to evolve?
Rotting Misery
Originally featured on our first album for Peaceville 'Lost Paradise' released in February 1990. The "Doom Dub" version appeared as a 12" single "In Dub" in April 1990 and was awarded Single Of The Week in NME. Whilst sounding very primal now, the track is a good indication of where we stood from a songwriting point of view at this stage in our career. "Other bands were playing at speed, so we thought we would slow it down" says Holmes.
Rotting Misery was probably our first doom - laden death metal song. The principal behind this was basically a rip off Black Sabbath and add the power of the death metal style in the vocal delivery.
This still remains our favourite old song, more influenced by Black Sabbath and Celtic Frost than the likes of Slayer, Aaron adds, "The 'Doom Dub' version of this miserable ditty was done mainly because of our slightly disappointing production of the "Lost Paradise" album, which lacked the energy and feel of our demos and was a chance to remix this song and try something new to see how it might have sounded, shame we didn't have the budget to do the whole LP but that's life."
The Last Time
This is one of those songs we would leave wil last at rehearsal so that we could leave on a high note (although we thought the video was terrible, we detest it), this is as jolly as P.L. get, a set finisher if there ever was one!
Mercy
This was a very difficult song a week before going into the studio, it began as an up tempo, guitars all the way number that was fun to play but not quite PL enough, it changed a lot during rehearsals and recording consumed a lot of time but was well worth it for the end result, and having developed the song a little further for live this has now become a strung favourite.
Widow
A no holds barred full on up tempo rocker. Yet again Aaron was the guinea pig for the video for this one, getting sprayed full force by a high pressure hose from one of the London Fire Dept's trucks, nearly knocking him off the high platform he was being filmed on! He also found it dfficult to breathe whilst headbanging away into the pressurised water cannon, but it looked OK. If that wasn't enough he was then strung up by his ankles!
We presumed Dave Barnard (our director) had a masochistic streak. Incidentally Matt recorded this song with broken ribs, which wasn't very easy, nice one Tuds! The song is about Holmes' general lack of understanding of womankinds' imminent takeover from man.
Embers Fire
We won the Best Rock Video award for this song from MTV, beating Bon Jovi & Aerosmith! Aaron & Simon Efemey were supping a few light ales whilst in the process of recording the four rhythm tracks, they were playing it full blast through huge speakers whilst recording it and Simon had his foot on the Neve desk singing the song in his Rob Halford voice and headbanging his dreads about, very funny evening.
Also memorable for our first use of the Wah Wah pedal, and its use in an advert for which the band received free car hi-fi's. Holmes is still waiting to install his in a car that is worthy of it.
As I Die
Regarded as the fans' all time favourite and by us as one of our best old songs. We are stuck with this song from a live angle as it is a warmly welcomed encore. As I Die was our first ever promo video, which was made for P 1,500, the As I Die EP was released in October 1992 being awarded Single Of The Week by Metallica on MTV Europe. For a long time Aaron complained of having a crap guitar sound and preferred to spend his money on beer instead of a new amp!
But when we went into the studio to record 'Shades of God' he managed to get some new Marshall Rack gear, which he & Simon Efemey (producer) tried almost unsuccessfully for what seemed an age to get a decent sound out of, until all of a sudden they flicked a switch and there it was. This was the first song he recorded with his new sound and when we all came back from town they played it to us. We loved it, which made Aaron as happy as it is possible for a member of P.L. to get.
This song has always remained special because of this...
Lyrics in plain text format
