NUCLEAR BLAST
Paradise Lost - Ascension Paradise Lost
Blending Metallica-esque riffage, Type-O heaviness, and Nick Holmes' vocals between Gahan, Eldritch and death growl, "Ascension" is a shining example that some bands get better with age.
Produced by guitarist Gregor Mackintosh at Black Planet studios in East Yorkshire, with drums and vocals captured at NBS and Wasteland studios in Sweden, its 10 tracks traverse the multitude of sounds in the band’s arsenal, from full-bore heavy metal to sky-high melody, all the while keeping a minor-key melancholy that remains irresistible.
“People should expect us to get more miserable,” jokes frontman, Nick Holmes, when asked what fans might anticipate from Paradise Lost in 2025. Explaining the album’s title and the lyrics, however, it’s clear that they remain masters of their art when it comes to delivering on such things. “The album title is taken from the belief in rising to the better place, in fiction from Earth to heaven, and all the requirements that go with that,” he elaborates. “In real life, people are often striving to get to a better place from birth, trying to be a better person, regardless of the fact that the only reward is death.
“The lyrics deal with everything that life throws at us,” he continues. “It's never predictable, and within that it can also be terrifying. How people deal with death, the crutches they turn to, and how the mental state is affected by life changing situations is always intriguing.” As is the music itself.
Album opener, Serpent on The Cross, begins with a gloriously doomy riff, before halfway through shifting gears into thundering classic metal, powered by double bass drumming and an almost Metallica-ish riff. On Silence Like The Grave, Nick sings “about the pointlessness of war, point scoring for the sake of humankind” over a perfect flourish of gothic metal. Tyrant’s Serenade, meanwhile, shows the band’s engrained expertise with making simplicity sound enormous, topped by Gregor’s signature haunting guitar leads, while Lay A Wreath Upon The World starts as a quiet elegy before building to a mournful climax, and closer, The Precipice, leads with piano lines before drawing things to a stately conclusion.
It all masterfully shows the breadth of what Paradise Lost have done and can do, in a manner that still no other band can make work quite the same.
Track List
2. Tyrants Serenade
3. Salvation
4. Silence Like The Grave
5. Lay A Wreath Upon The World
6. Diluvium
7. Savage Days
8. Sirens
9. Deceivers
10. The Precipice
11. This Stark Town (Digipack CD Track)
12. A Life Unknown (Digipack CD Track)
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Product information
Shipping
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Pre-orders
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On the subject of pre-orders, please note than release dates can change (sometimes not until the scheduled release date). Please keep an eye on our website
Returns
Returns Procedure
If you wish to cancel or return an order, you need to notify us by email (quoting your order number), and wait for us to get back to you before returning goods.
We will email you with instructions and a returns reference number. When returning items to us, you will need to take reasonable care to ensure they are not damaged in transit and that they are labelled clearly with the correct address & reference number (as provided by us) :
Relevant Record Café,
260 Mill Road
Cambridge,
CB1 3NF.
We reserve the right to not process returns sent to us without prior permission.
It’s your responsibility to retain possession and to take reasonable care of the goods in the period prior to return and until you send them back to us.
Your Right To Cancel An Order
Your right to cancel your order starts from the moment you place the order, and ends 14 days from the time you receive your order.
Non-Faulty Products
If you wish to return a product because it’s unwanted or it was ordered in error, please follow the returns procedure (see above).
We’ll happily accept a return as long as the product is still in its original shrink-wrapped packaging and is completely undamaged. You have 14 days from when you receive your order to notify us that you wish to return your order.
By opening a sealed product in any way (or using any digital download code accompanying your order), you waive your right to cancel or return your order.
Obviously we’d rather offer you store credit (in the form of a gift card), but if you’d prefer a refund, we promise to get this sorted within 14 days of receiving your return.
Please take care when ordering!
Faulty Products
If you believe you have purchased a faulty or damaged record, please follow the returns procedure (see above).
Once we receive your record, it will be tested by a member of staff in store.
If your record is deemed as faulty, you will be entitled to a refund, swap or store credit (to the same value as your initial purchase).
If this record is not deemed as faulty, we will not cover any additional postage and packaging costs incurred by either you or us, and we will not be able to offer you a refund, store credit or swap.
Basically, please be absolutely certain the record you have purchased is faulty before following the returns procedure. If possible, we suggest testing the record on different turntables and weighting the tone arm differently.
Steepletone and Crosley Record Players
After having several “faulty” records returned to us (that in actuality had nothing wrong with them), we cannot guarantee that any records we sell will play correctly Crosley or Steepletone branded record players.