Paradise Lost

One Second

When the light Disappeared from This Cold Life

Review Score:

(4/10)
Let me get this clear from the start: before you start accusing me of being a backwards death-metaller screaming `sell outs' from the stands, I understand that everything has to change. After doing it for however long they did it for, PL were probably pretty bored with their style (or had `taken it as far as it can go,' to quote), so I am not against them for changing. I am against the way that they changed. Now don't get me wrong, this is not a diabolical album; indeed, it's quite catchy in places, and various musical arrangements show above average gothic sensitivity, but songs that are good the whole way through are a little thin on the ground. `One Second', for example starts with this great piano intro, but then keeps the same riff going until you get bored of it. `Lydia' has an awesome chorus and verse, but then the bridge section arrives and it's just the verse without lyrics and you really want something else there. The only track that I can honestly say I like the whole way through is `Say Just Words', an awesome song that combines hard-rocking guitars with that new found obsession for keyboards. It's odd that it's track two, being as it starts their Reflection album, their live sets, and they have said themselves that they wrote it as an intro song, so it feels a bit misplaced, but there you go...

I dislike the lack of definitive style on this album. Every other album, the moment you heard it you knew instantly that it was different from all the other bands in the world; PL have changed their style from the very start, but each transition has always been unique and always been something very special. This album, on the other hand, could have been made by anybody. It's not a bad album, but it's not unique, not ground breaking, and not special by a long shot, and for me it was the originality that made PL the greatest band ever formed. To clarify this point, when I first heard `Ember's Fire' I looked up from whatever I was doing and immediately went: `Who's this?' Then, after being a fan for three years, I heard `Say Just Words', and I said: `This is quite cool. Which band is this?'

Having been a fan for many years, I've got pretty much everything PL ever released, and my third opposition to this album is in the way that they changed. There were so many possibilities; they could have gone mainstream gothic, like their B-side `Another Desire'; they could have gone what I call gothic-punk-metal, like `Once Solemn' and the B-side `Fear'; they could have gone for the gothic melodrama, like `Forever Failure'; instead they seemed insistent on keyboard-dominated tunes. The trouble with that is that they rely on the instrument rather than any tune or song structure to make the songs moody. The bridge in `Gothic', the outro of `Enchantment', the pre-chorus of `Hallowed Land', and the unbeatable remix of `Forever Failure,' that merges the guitars and keyboards, are all fine examples of PL's previous keyboard expertise. What they do on this album with that same instrument is entirely less creative.

So, in brief: it's listenable, but you won't look back on it in years to come as the sound that defined this time in your life. It's not an album to repeatedly come back to, but `Say Just Words' is great. Many of the songs have moments that take you away, but by the end of each one, you're just left wishing for something that never comes. To a great band, I tearfully bid adieu.

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