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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
This Is Doom Metal, September 22, 2002
If you were to look up "doom metal" in the Headbangers' Illustrated Dictionary, you might just see a picture of Icon. Slower and heavier than the masterpiece that followed it (Draconian Times), Icon is a powerful album that takes several listens before you really begin to appreciate it. But once you've digested its subtleties, you'll find yourself returning to it again and again for years to come.Listening to Paradise Lost is all about letting the euphoric melancholia that only they can create take over your senses. And nowhere is this melancholia more in effect than on Icon. Just seconds into the gorgeous orchestral synth introduction to the first track, "Embers Fire", you'll sense that feeling creeping over you - you're pleasantly depressed. Don't worry, you'll snap out of it in, oh, about 50 minutes. Your only job is to enjoy it while it lasts. The songs flow seamlessly one into the next with the highlights being "Embers Fire", "Dying Freedom", "Widow", "Poison", and "True Belief". "Christendom" incorporates female vocals to fine effect. As in most middle-era Paradise Lost, there are some great melodic guitar solos on Icon. By album's end, you're drained but ready to resume normal life again. If you are into Paradise Lost at all, you need to have this album. If you are new to Paradise Lost and curious to try them out, I recommend you start out with the more accessible classics, Draconian Times and One Second, then work your way back to Icon. Icon is an album for true Paradise Lost aficionados.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Definitely the best metal album you've never heard, December 11, 2000
Before hearing "Icon" and reading bad reviews on Paradise Lost's older material ("Gothic" being the target of most of the slander), I chose to not give anything old of theirs a chance and stuck to "One Second" and "Draconian Times," assuming those to be the best albums by this band.I've never been so wrong in my life. "Icon," at first listen, didn't especially grab me in any way. The catchiness of some of the simpler tracks on "Draconian Times" caught my attention more immediately at first, but there was something about "Icon" I couldn't quite figure out at first. Sometimes music does that though...the truly good stuff doesn't quite grow on the seasoned listener until a few thorough listens. But after about the 4th listen to this remarkable work of darkness, I was hooked. "Embers Fire" is so deathly subtle yet so incredibly well-written it eluded me at first. The haunting cello intro will echo in your mind for days upon nights as you stare at your ceiling while lying in bed, and the melodies of the groove-laden guitars are sure to become immortal with true fans of metal. The lyrics are dark, mostly concerning dishonesty, revenge, and hatred. My personal favorite song on the album is probably "Shallow Seasons," with Nick Holmes bellowing like a seriously angry demon: "Anger compels the force of weakness or fear, but I promise no forgiveness for the rest of my years." When you hear him roar this out, you probably won't doubt him. This album is an absolute masterpiece. Since I 'discovered' it about 5 or 6 months ago, it's been in my car CD player for about 80% of the time I drive. While "Draconian Times" and "One Second" are still very good albums, (I particularly like the experimental style on the latter, though some metalheads would probably burn me at the stake for saying that), "Icon" is just a landmark achievement in the world of dark music. This is music for the depressed, for the sick, for the weak, for the strong, and for anyone who desires a musical experience they're not likely to forget.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Not "just" the Ember's Fire of Dark Atmospheric Rock..., November 1, 2000
When I got ICON in 1994 from Vanessa Warwick at Headbanger's Ball Festival, Germany, and later listened to it, I could not really find an entrance to this gigantic artwork of Paradise Lost instantly or at once. In the beginning of my personal "Icon-Experience", to my mind it sounded strange, unconventionally, uneasy to listen to and even more problematic to understand it's meaning and message - talking about both: the lyrics and the sound. But what goes for all great or major artwork - that the later by us most appreciated things, do not please us normally "at first sight" - also applies to Paradise Lost's ICON album: access to its very own idea, to its specific point of worldview, we might say, and to its "sense" can only be gained by opening oneself to it totally, by letting the music flow into our mind and soul, filling us totally, until we - eventually - become the music ourselves. This happened in my mind, and then I understood, then I have seen, and the words - both: the lyrical and the musical - became meaning to me, shaping, rendering and changing the emotional aspects of my spirit, and rewarding with a new, a different view of what (according to my own reality) is. In accordance to this, the Icon-experience can even be a "religious", or better: a mystical, metaphysic experience to the one who listens carefully with his whole existence to this magnificent tunes, that swallow everything; it may also set free new horizons - like leaving one shore (which is the one of our average experience) and reaching another one (different, maybe "higher" in a way): the expansion and enlargement of our awareness and consciousness. What can there be else to say about? Well, it's the first and only CD that I'd take on this "lonely island" - if I would have only one choice.
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by Paradise Lost 
