The Yorkshire metal veterans Paradise Lost have been around for more than three decades. The name of the band has become synonymous with a distinct sound combining gothic, death and doom to deliver a layered, wonderful type of darkness. Their 16th studio album, Obsidian will very much please serious metal fans who have followed the band throughout, presenting a natural continuation of The Plague Within (2015) and Medusa (2017). At the same time, even a metalhead’s non-metalhead neighbours might not complain too much if Obsidian penetrates through the walls: the album is riddled with brilliant riffs by Greg Mackintosh, and choruses designed to stick in the memory.
For those of us who miss live gigs and mosh pits, Obsidian paints some seriously vivid pictures of the collective, near-religious experience of enjoying good metal together. Paradise Lost remain faithful to their own rules: song-based material, no pointless solos, and “classic” heavy themes. Characters like Jesus Christ, the Devil himself, ghosts and different forms of spiritual defeat all make an appearance in the album. The band singer and lyricist Nick Holmes takes advantage of being in a perfectly reasonable position to have fun with the genre and to do it gracefully, without getting cheesy or killing the mystery.
Obsidian makes no claims to being a concept album; yet, this is positively not just a set of songs casually thrown together on a record. Both groovy and gloomy, energetic and slow, the album gets listeners to sink into a spiral of darkness, while still feeling the urge to sing along. From elegant and complex compositions like the opening “Darker Thoughts” and the closing “Ravenghast”, through the dance-inspiring “Ghosts” and “Forsaken” that echo the band’s 90s hits “Say Just Words” and “One Second”, Obsidian is diverse yet faithful to the style of Paradise Lost and their legacy.
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