Hard to believe this is the eighteenth album for Paradise Lost in their career stretching back to 1988. Fuck. I remember when I got into Gothic and then got even more into Icon—back when the Doom/Death style was new and fresh and everything seemed innovative and exciting. It feels like another world now, after so much time. Paradise Lost have spent a lot of time since dinking around with electronic sounds and gothic music and generally just not doing what I wanted them to do.

Thankfully this is a lot of what I do want from Paradise Lost. For one, it's a definite metal album, with metal riffs and those overarching melodies that always made this band stand out from the more dull, dragging Doom/Death imitators they spawned. When Nick Holmes growls, he still sounds good, and even if the band overuses clean backing vocals, at least they are done well. The production is solid if not better than that, and I would like if it was heavier. Combined with the clean vocals, the slick production makes this sound more commercial and accessible than I would like. I remember how fucking bleak Gothic sounded and I wish we could have more of that.

At its best, this album evokes the hooky riffs and high points of Icon, and it retains an overall atmosphere that is just inarguably Paradise Lost—it doesn't sound like anyone else. That said, it is not doing anything the band has not done before—and done better.