PARADISE LOST - Ascension CD

Misery. Sorrow. Doom. Welcome to Halifax. Since 1988, UK gloomsters Paradise Lost have been dishing out the most downcast and despondent riffs known to man, and on their seventeenth studio album Ascension, they prove once again there’s still plenty of despair to be mined.

Boasting a beefy production and some of the mightiest compositions from the band since the nineties, Ascension is another overwhelming success for the frowny five-piece. Portentous and ominous, the riffs are massive, the rhythm section a finely tuned machine, and Holmes’s vocals are nothing short of magnificent. Another absolute masterclass in misery.