Paradise Lost

Live at The El Rey

Los Angeles, California

September 8th, 2012

Review and Photos by Travis Baumann

For many years I have listened to Paradise Lost, recognized the world over as one of the pioneering fathers of Gothic Metal, and have up until now missed every opportunity to see them live. I was very excited when they were announced to be opening guests for the Epic Kings and Idols tour featuring Devin Townsend and Katatonia.

Paradise Lost formed in 1988 and for that entire time the band has remained a cohesive whole with only the drummer changing roster members.

For over two dozen years they have been producing albums and in that time their sound has evolved, changed and digressed and then done it again. Their influence is expressed by metal and rock bands of all type and no matter what era or album you pick up the mood and musicianship pull you in.

Their latest album, "Tragic Idol" carries with it a heavy dose of somber Gothic tales of tragedy yet perseverance. It is at once dark yet uplifting, sad yet motivating. It is this juxtaposition of darkness and beauty that has always pulled me to Gothic doom-shrouded subject matter.

They opened the set with "The Enemy" off of "In Requiem", a really great album and great song to kick things off. For their second song they did "Honesty In Death" from their latest release.  I always love hearing new material but since I have not seen them before I was excited to see what they would give us.

I was really stoked they did one of my favorite songs from years ago, "Erased" off of their "Symbol Of Life" release. They took it even farther back with "As I Die" from the "Shades of God" release which features much more growl based vocals than on their later material.

They juxtaposed this early song with the title track off the new album, "Tragic Idol" before continuing with the death metal edge for another old favorite, playing "Forever Failure" from "Draconian Times".

Being third billing on a big tour, they were not given a huge amount of time so they were already coming up to the last portion of the set. They gave us "One Second" off of the album of the same name and then brought us back to the newest release for the awesome song, "In This We Dwell".

This left time for only one more song for the night and they chose "Say Just Words" off the "One Second" album which was a good choice that bridges the early more aggressive mood of their music with their later more melodic doom anthems.  It was great to finally see them and I can't wait for them to headline in the future.

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