Symbol of Life

by

Paradise Lost

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Some might call this album a "return to form", although in my opinion this great band never left in the first place. I think it's a great album, not only for its listenability and top-notch production, but for the fact that the band continues to progress through experimentations without sacrificing their trademark "dark" edge.

They start the album off with a strong statement in the menacing "Isolate," a catchy and heavy fist-pumper. "Two Worlds," "Perfect Mask", "Pray Nightfall" and "Symbol of Life" are all very strong points, making good use of heavy guitars, strings, and programming. Nick Holmes gets better with every album as a "clean" singer, and happily throws in some on-key growling when appropriate. The guitars in "Self Obsessed" (especially the lead) are great-- they take me back to the glory days when this band wrote amazing guitar-driven songs. It's too bad the lyrics are a little silly. One of the very best efforts on the album is the superb cover of the Dead Can Dance song "Xavier." The band continues its tradition of excellent covers here, as they take this amazing song and make it their own without cutting out the "otherworldly" atmosphere that Dead Can Dance create. Weak points like the cheesy chorus in "Erased" and the boring "Mystify" are easily overlooked in favor of the album's strengths.

Rhys Fulber's production work is very impressive, especially in light of John Fryer's disappointing effort on the band's previous record, "Believe in Nothing." The guitar sound is more satisfyingly thick throughout than it has been since "Draconian Times" (1995) It's also great to hear real live drums making an impression and standing out again in the music. The drum machines of the previous three albums made for some truly excellent dark songs, but it was a shame to have a good drummer like Lee Morris in the background instead of the forefront.

Perhaps the best thing about this album is its return to heavier music without regressing. As much as I love "Icon" and "Draconian Times" (see my "DT" review, hehehe) I would have been disappointed if they had fallen back on music they wrote seven years earlier. Such desperate retro- grasping is the sign of a band in decline, and this album shows in spades that Paradise Lost are still going strong and moving forward.