Customer Reviews

Shades of God

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Are you still thinking is this the album for you or not? So read what I think, but seriously I truly don't know what to say when we talk about Paradise Lost, not because I don't have anything to say but because when you speak about Paradise Lost words are not enough. I am not a fan of this band but really appreciate their three albums: "Gothic", "Shades of God" and "Icon". After listening to them for several years I can admit that "Shades of God" is their best album though it is more inornate than "Icon". Of course "Icon" has very melodic elements of doom-goth metal and is cleverly made for success but doesn't have such a conception as "Shades of God", and I am able to listen to "Icon" with great pleasure just once in 6 months. After listening to "Shades of God", on the other hand, I can't abandon this compact disk on the deep shelf because I want to remember the melody and refresh the feelings over some time. There are some really catchy and very attractive melodies with gloomy poetry, mainly it concerns such songs as "Pity the Sadness", "Mortals Watch the Day" and "As I Die". Gregor really wrote beautiful music, and Nick has pretty nice vocal but can't say the same about his singing on the last albums, where he has a bad vocal, and maybe it would be better if he wouldn't sing at all, just a music playing. Back to the point: if you like doom-death music with smart melodies and performance - you have to listen to "Shades of God" - in any case it is not the worst album of Paradise Lost.

I don't understand why I'm reading all of these bad reviews of "shades of god". I had bought this album when it came out, then someone decided they had to have it so they stole mine! So here it is exactly 10 years later, I've bought it again and I must say this album is HEAVY! "NO FORGIVENESS" is a classic ballad of despair that will go down in history. Who would dare disagree with "As I die"?, a haunting, doom filled masterpiece! If you don't own this--buy it today! I know when I first heard this album that I had to have it--it gave me "chills", that's how you know it's a good album. Put this in the CD player and crank up the first track "Mortals watch the day", and know you have done the right thing.

Discovering Paradise Lost after Icon was relased, I was immediately hooked. Moving backwards, their evolution is clear.... songs such as As I Die, Pity the Sadness, and No Forgiveness demonstrate the orchestrated guitar parts and goth overtones of the band< with lyrics that provide insight to pain we have all felt at some point or another. In all, the album is an awesome dreamscape of a tired soul.

This is DEFINITELY the best Paradise Lost album and in fact the best one from the doom metal style in the early 90s.
Great lyrics, great music.

Paradise Lost seem to have come a long way from their primitive beginings. "Shades of God" has some marvelously morose songs and their Black Sabbath/Trouble inspirations shine through. "Mortals Watch the Day" is an exceptional track, featuring great use of riffs and Nick Holmes terrifically gruff, deep voice perfectly suited for the bands' music. The songs throughout, have a sense of loss, remorse and melancholy. The trick, as the band seems to have figured out, is how to make nearly an hours worth of doom and depression interesting. The only notable problems here is the drumming, which is barely passable and seems to function soley as a time keeper as opposed to another instrument of quality. I'm telling you now, there are hardly any fills or dynamics where the drumming is concerned. Secondly, and strangely enough, the production is, well, too polished. Doom/goth music like this needs a heavier, more morose production, and while everything is clear and audible, this lacks that certain "fuzz" that it needs. Other than those 2 quibbles, this is a fine metal album in a field of mostly wannabe's and neverwere's.

this cd was my fourth by Paradise Lost, and while it isn't my favorite, PL is one of those bands where you need to hear everything. It's all good, even if it's very different from what I had gotten used to expecting. If you liked Draconian Times and Icon, this should come next. Draconian was my very first, and is still my favorite, but this was my cd of choice this halloween. Maybe not as well thought out as Draconian Times, but there was some definite emotion put into the making of these songs.

Before Paradise Lost went Mainstream with "Icon", "Draconian Times" , the dreadful "One Second", the surprisingly good "Host" and "Believe in Nothing" which is very likely gonna be the last album of their entire career, they released "Shades of God".

I remember a friend telling me about them as "Christian Death-Metal". That isn't exactly fitting since PL were neither Christian nor ever really DM. The first album I heard was ICON and I loved it back then. It was spinning on my Walkman and my CD-Player for a LONG time. Not many people knew them when ICON came out, but about one year after, everybody seemed to love the Band, yet few were familiar with their roots.

Now, nearly 10 years after it's release, I can say that SHADES OF GOD is my favorite PL record. From the opening accords of "Mortals watch the Day" to the very listenable "As I die" this album is 100 % the Paradise Lost I know and love. It is nowhere as lightweight as ICON or DRACONIAN TIMES ( if you think of these albums as HEAVY-METAL you know you never heard of METAL ), it has a more doomy, depressing feel to it. Most of the songs are pretty slow ( "No Forgiveness", "Your Hand in mine", "Crying for Eternity", "Embraced", "Daylight Torn" ) and I mean SLOW! Much more Black Sabbath than Metallica and Nick singing pretty much in Death-Metal style. What makes this album special is that neither Paradise Lost nor any of the countless Bands that tried to rip them off ( Cemetery, Theatre of Tragedy ) could top this release in terms of style, perfection and deepness. No other Band ever played an accustic guitar solo in a song like "Daylight Torn", no Band ever made a such honest and depressing lovesong like "Your Hand in mine". "As I die" is beyond criticism to anyone who ever heard it. "Pity the Sadness" is a song like no other as well, the lyircs ( "I've cried for god and I've cried for you, but I pray that in the end your sense will break through" ) give me shivers. This was also a time for PL when they would make a song as long as it took, ignoring radio-airplay guidelines completely. So don't wonder why there aren't much songs under 6 minutes of lentgh.

This is a must buy for PL fans of any kind and one of the best works in metal out there. Get lost, Theatre of Tragedy - this is the real stuff!

First off, this is probably one of their best albums. Some of the songs are a little drawn out, but the musicianship makes up for that. This is one album that shows what a Great band is supposed to sound like ( certainly better than late 90's cheese metal ). I bought their first album " Lost Paradise " back when it first came out and now own every single album. They certainly have evolved and continue to impress me with every single release and have not disappointed me yet.

To give a little history - this is the second time I have bought this CD. The first was when it first came out, it survived many playings and many moves but eventually just didn't last. Of course, I treat CD's much better than this now.


Historically this was the third CD of Paradise Lost's that I had heard. The first was Gothic, I then went backwards to get Lost Paradise.
They were each good, with Gothic being the better, but this CD really stood out too me. Instead of a death like grunt it is more of a sorrowful bellow if that is even possible. The vocals are not normal singing yet, but they are not death styled either.
Also, there is a much stronger sense of melody here which shows that the band was starting to find its unique sound that lead to the many changes in the future including electronica and a predominately clean vocal sound.
The riffs here though are both doomy and melodic giving a lot of the songs an unusual power. The drums were suitably powerful with an epic and when necessary thunderous feel.
At times almost upbeat, brooding, sorrowful and angry in its own tormented way this album was the first of the major UK doom acts to really get my interest. (The others were My Dying Bride from Turn Loose the Swans and Anathema from Silent Enigma).

Crying for Eternity, No Forgiveness, Your Hand in Mine and As I Die are my favourite songs off this album.
As I Die was the albums single.
This album may not have aged as well as some of there others but I have to give it a high rating just for the impact it had on me at the time. I will never really be able to subjectively review it without a somewhat nostalgic reminder of the emotions I went through with it at the time. For newer listeners, I would recommend you listen to samples first as this may not be what you expect from this band - again, given how diverse there changes were after this album musically.

Paradise Lost moves further away from their death metal origins on third album Shades Of God, as their sound has developed into something more in line with doom of the traditional mode, with the pained growls of Nick Holmes remaining as the only element aligning their approach with the death/doom subgenre. Early Black Sabbath remains the clearest musical inspiration, while the 80s goth'rock influence surfacing on Gothic has been reduced in favor of bluesy guitar melodies and plodding rhythms reminiscent of traditional doom of the 1970s and 1980s, such as St. Vitus, Pentagram, and Trouble, albeit from a darker, more desperately morose perspective. Less obscure than earlier work though still woebegone and grief'stricken, Shades Of God vaunts a cleaner production, which shines a greater clarity on instrumentation, though the bass drums are curiously powerless, as a hesitant knock on a wooden door with thick gloves. The dirge'riffs and remarkable lead work, along with the despair'towards'madness vocals of Holmes are the lead expressive sources of this music, and these defining aspects succeed in constituting this as a compelling, dynamic album.

"Lonely are my tears of pain
and I'm punished by their cause
I'll rest on my burning throne
A release I move towards is eternal sleep"

The compositions have been expanded to allow for extended instrumental passages, shunning the claustrophobia of past work for a broader, more flexible scope of presentation. Logical improvement in instrumental proficiency is evidenced, and the confidence that grows from such advancement induces this more expansive songwriting, discovering different tones of expression within individual songs, with "Crying For Eternity" and "Embraced" acting as prime examples of the wider sense of expressive potential and variety. Observable on previous recordings, yet coming into stronger effect here, is the band's flair for the anthemic, with "As I Die" and "Pity The Sadness" displaying a NWOBHM-style rhythmic urgency and power choruses. Smart songwriters, Paradise Lost understand the method of working their melodic sensibilities into appropriate passages for the greatest effect, which breathes an air of distant serenity through their morose sound. Contemplative acoustic guitars bring moments of quietude in otherwise pitiless and bitter doom songs "Daylight Torn" and "No Forgiveness". The objective is to discover a wider range of communication through more melodic and detailed songwriting.

Guitar leads of Gregor Mackintosh are the treasure of this disc. Flooding these songs with playing of pure feeling and recognition of compositional dynamic, his work here is soulful and melancholy, bringing beautiful atmosphere to this music. The rhythmic foundation is nothing spectacular, with elementary drumming and serviceable bass adequate enough to support the brilliance of Mackintosh's leads. The riffs are typical of the doom style, carrying thick darkness acting more as rhythmic shadow against which lead guitar and vocal shape melodic and tonal character. Nick Holmes achieves a stronger intelligible lucidity through this album, anguished as ever yet striving for clarity. His experiment with baritone gothic'style singing on "Your Hand In Mine" works well, identifying a range of expression beyond his tormented growls.

"Can't find the key to destiny
Life is your quest. Erase your quest"

Shades Of God is Paradise Lost's most doom'oriented work. The longer instrumental passages and blues'oriented guitars have much more in common with classic doom than with the Celtic Frost/Sisters Of Mercy influences of earlier work. Expressing somber emotion through this style of music is a quality in which Paradise Lost have confirmed their splendor, and while this album doesn't surpass Gothic in historical importance or atmospheric magnificence, the excellent tandem of Mackintosh and Holmes, and the band's talent for emotive expression and insightful song'craft, make Shades Of God a rewarding listen for doom fans, or any who appreciate guitar'driven melancholic music of intense grief and soulful yearning.