Although released in incredibly limited quantities on CD and as a digital download, Paradise Lost’s 25th anniversary show, tracked at London’s famous Roundhouse by Abbey Road Live, has remained a hard-to-find treasure. Now, however, as part of a series of vinyl reissues (running from 2007’s ‘in requiem’ through to 2012’s ‘tragic idol), it is being pressed as a one-time only offering, courtesy of Century Media. Arguably the most honest representation of Paradise Lost’s live show, thanks to having been mixed on the fly, this warts ‘n’ all recording (complete with career-spanning set list) was mastered by Patrick W Engel (Tiamat, Moonspell), comes pressed on 180 gram vinyl and housed in a beautiful gatefold sleeve. It is, therefore, an attractive package for long term fans of the band and is worth picking up quickly.
Century Media have rarely let fans down in the vinyl department and this album is no exception. The gatefold sleeve, with its stunning Valnoir artwork, is printed on heavy duty, matte-finish card, and the inner cover features black and white photography from the night. The vinyl itself is kept in poly-lined paper sleeves (much better for keeping your treasured discs safe than the scratchy, if more attractive, printed inner sleeves), although it’s a shame that there’s no large format booklet to pore over. Depending upon where fans buy their copy, the vinyl is pressed on to pristine black vinyl (1,300 copies), lilac (200 copies), transparent yellow (200 copies) and golden (300 copies), all of which (apart from the black) appear to be available solely from CMDistro (here). The quality of the vinyl is superlative, our review discs (on black) free from pops and crackles of any sort. The sound is rich and clear throughout, with bass represented particularly well, and no side features more than four tracks. The result is an impressively natural sounding LP that presents this special concert in the best possible light. Strangely, given the absence of any substantial post-production work, the sound is actually far better than that found on the ‘symphony for the lost’ LP, perhaps because of the additional channels used up by the orchestra on that recording, and songs like ‘Isolate’ have an impressive crispness that overshadows previous live versions.
As for the show itself, it is gratifying indeed to hear the band playing with such fluid grace in the live environment. Even the most ardent Paradise Lost fan will admit that shows can be variable (with the live concert appended to the recent reissue of ‘One Second’ being a fair example of a poor recording), but here Paradise Lost are on unstoppable form, a fact rendered all the more impressive by the complete absence of overdubs or studio trickery of any sort. Right from the moment the band kick off with ‘mortals watch the day’ (from 1992’s ‘shades of god’), it’s clear that this is to be no ordinary performance, and yet it is typical of the contrary nature of the band that they should follow up so deathly a track with ‘so much is lost’ from the controversial (yet excellent) ‘host’. The fact that the one flows so seamlessly into the other, only goes to show that Paradise Lost were right to follow their muse all along, and the cheer that greets the track suggests that attitudes have mellowed since the scathing criticism that unreasonably greeted the album’s arrival. It’s back to ‘Icon’ for an impressive ‘remembrance’, but the real treasure of side one is a stunning take on ‘gothic’ (which, for once, sees the synth parts clearly rendered), which the band brought back to life on the ‘tragic illusion’ LP.
The second side opens with a bombastic take on ‘enchantment’ from ‘Draconian Times’ (an album the band had only toured in full two years previous) before more recent fare gets an airing in the form of ‘faith divides us – death unites us’, ‘tragic idol’ and a particularly malevolent ‘never for the damned’. It’s an impressive run of tracks that highlights just how little Paradise Lost have faltered over the years, with the more recent material standing shoulder to shoulder with what many would consider their classics. ‘Faith unites us…’ is, of course, a familiar track from an album that deserves a much more thorough airing, but even so this is a fine version, with Nick nailing the vocal with precision. ‘Never for the damned’ is a particular highlight, however, and the recorded version pales in comparison to the unholy rendition offered here.
Side C is arguably the strangest in terms of sequencing, with the first two tracks focusing heavily on the band’s more electronic material – a blistering ‘isolate’ from the underrated ‘symbol of life’ album and a now-standard rendition of the evergreen ‘say just words’ bringing the main set to an end, and it would have made sense, perhaps, to end the side here, given that the band return for an encore that gleefully plunges the audience into an icy pit of hell with the Sabbath-infused devilry of ‘rotting misery’ from their Peaceville debut. Yet, although on paper the pairing of these tracks shouldn’t work, the track (with its tolling bell intro) is so deftly woven into the set that it works, and any remaining concerns are dispatched by the remarkable power of the band’s performance. Nick, in particular, appears to be on the form of his life, shifting from rich clean tones to scarifying bark with an ease that goes far towards explaining the greater vocal variety found on ‘Medusa’.
The final side sees the encore continue with another track from ‘one second’ – it’s title track; another track from the ground breaking ‘Icon’ (the only other album to feature two songs in the set list) in ‘true belief’ and, somewhat surprisingly, ‘over the madness’ from the band’s self-titled effort. It successfully brings a set that has covered the band’s entire career to an end, but it’s a strange choice when one considers the relative popularity of songs such as ‘enchantment’ and ‘gothic’, both of which were dispatched surprisingly early in a set list that eschewed chronology for flow. What really surprises, however, is how quickly a seventy-minute set appears to have passed, with the end of side four coming as something of a surprise. It says much for the energetic nature of the band’s performance, and it is amazing that this was not more widely released before.
Something of a Paradise Lost super-fan, I have collected a number of their live releases over the years. To date, the powerful ‘anatomy of melancholy’ and the impressive ‘symphony for the lost’ stand as the highlights with the suspiciously perfect ‘draconian times MMXI’ somewhere in the middle and the pretty feeble ‘evolve’ (initially released on DVD and then, this year, as the bonus disc to the ‘one second’ reissue) at the far end of the scale. This 25th anniversary show may very well prove to be the best of this list, not just because of the raw power of the recording, but also because the set list runs the gamut of a remarkable career, with one track aired form each of the band’s albums to that point. If some choices do err on the safe side (why choose the perennial encore of ‘say just words’ over the demonic ‘Lydia’ for example), it’s reasonable that the band would want to air their biggest hitters, I suppose, and there are enough surprising cuts on offer to balance this out. Factor in the stunning cover and the limited nature of the pressing and you have a truly irresistible treasure for Paradise Lost fans to get their hands on. 10
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