Live Review: Paradise Lost, Manchester, 28-Sep-2005

Last Wednesday I went to Manchester Academy 3 to see Paradise Lost, one of the major influnces for my ficticious Ümläüt. Perhaps buying several albums and going to see the band live is a bit OTT for research for an RPG character, but I do quite their music...

There were two support bands. First up, Leaves Eyes, another of the currently fashionable subgenre of female-fronted metal bands following in the wake of the likes of Finland's Nightwish and Italy's Lacuna Coil. They play what I would describe as Viking-flavoured Euro-metal. Liv Kristine Espenæs Krull's soprano vocals give them a distinctive sound, and she's very much the visual focus of the band on stage. The twin guitars of Thorsten Bauer and Dr Who lookalike Mathias Röderer gave them a heavy sound in places, although some of their songs relied on programmed orchestral keyboards from Alexander Krull, who spent most of the set in the wings, and only appears to sing vocals on a couple of guitar-driven songs. They played an enthusiastic and entertaining short set. I think we'll hear more of this band.

Second support, the Norwegian (almost) all-girl band Octavia weren't quite as good. Technical problems delayed the start of their set. Darker and more gothy than Leaves Eyes, they didn't seem quite as tight, and their songs weren't as memorable. On the other hand, they appeared to be extremely young (one or two of them looked about seventeen), so maybe there will better music from them in the future.

I didn't quite know what to expect from Paradise Lost. They'd established a reputations as leaders of the "Northern Doom" scene of goth-metal, culminating in the excellent "Draconian Times" album. Then they kept changing their sound, delving into electronica, and found their fan base began evaporating. More recently they've returned to their metal roots, although I had yet to hear their latest album.

Paradise Lost opened with "Like a Fever" from Draconian Times, a statement of intent. We were treated to a little over an hour of dark and atmospheric metal. They played a token song, So Much Is Lost from the Depeche Mode like "Host", some excellent goth rock numbers from the "One Second" album, and some oldies like "As I Die", which vocalist Nick Holmes sang 'clean' rather than in the cookie-monster style of the original recording. One of the high spots was "Hallowed Ground", one of their heaviest songs, with Gregor Mackintosh's simple but devastatingly effective solo (yes I know it's just a series of rising arpeggios and a wah-wah pedal, but it works!). Interesting moment on the final encore, "Just Say Words", where the opening piano figure got a bigger reaction from the audience than the Nick Holmes' announcement of the songs. He reckoned the audience was slow on the uptake; but it proved that I wasn't the only person who recognised the intro but couldn't remember what the song was called.

Overall, a good show, well worth braving a wet Wednesday evening, even if they didn't attempt to summon Great Cthulhu.