Band:	Paradise Lost
Album:	Lost Paradise
Style:	Death doom metal
Release date:	February 1990

01. Intro
02. Deadly Inner Sense
03. Paradise Lost
04. Our Saviour
05. Rotting Misery
06. Frozen Illusion
07. Breeding Fear
08. Lost Paradise
09. Internal Torment II [CD & cassette bonus]
10. Eternal [live] [2003 Re-release bonus]
11. Gothic [Mix] [2003 Re-release bonus]
12. The Painless [Mix] [2003 Re-release bonus]

1990, the world starts to move in mysterious ways. Clouds all over Europe, shadows rising hide the sun, a new dawn of pure decadence is about to begin. Paradise is Lost and its fallen children are Nick Holmes, Greg Mackintosh, Aaron Aedy, Stephen Edmondson and Matthew Archer that farewelled all happiness and lost themselves in the yard of a cemetery on a gloomy mourning day, five black figures in perfect harmony with the dreary landscape. When all doom/death metal bands try to play faster and faster a band from the UK named Paradise Lost slows down playing primary doom/death metal; the fallen angels' cries turned into bleak symphonies.

"Lost Paradise" gets released from Peaceville Records, a label that helped doom/death metal make its first and most important steps by signing the most important pioneers of the genre: Paradise Lost, My Dying Bride and Anathema (the UK Holy Trinity). The death metal grunts straight from the throat expressing mourning and painful lyrics straight from the heart, the bleeding guitar riffing and the imposing rhythm section creating high walls surrounding you form a "lost paradise" losing itself in its own oblivion?

"Intro" opens the album evoking an unearthly feeling in the air while sardonic laughs echo from beyond leading to "Deadly Inner Sense" as a voice questions in whisper "where is your God now". Nick Holmes grunts with all of his power expressing his painful lyrics as the mourning doomy guitar riffing and crying solos along with the imposing rhythm section accompany him. A bleeding guitar solo opens the following composition, "Paradise Lost", which is a slow doom/death one. Some keyboard melodies echo here and there making the already bleak atmosphere more intense as the guitars weep with Holmes' grunts coming from the core of his soul.

The album continues in a more aggressive way with "Our Savior", a wonderful death metal piece expressing anger, pain, despair and despise to an unseen god in times of need while dying through the descriptive throat of Nick Holmes. "Rotting Misery" follows, a fine doom/death work with slow mourning riffing, Holmes great and expressive as always and the rhythm section creating walls slowly closing in. A suffocating composition follows, "Frozen Illusion", filled with the visuals of someone's last moments, awaiting death's cold touch and how he feels while departing. Greg Mackintosh's solo is mesmerizing and one of those that established the unique Paradise Lost guitar sound.

"Breeding Fear" lets the album flow in more aggressive soundscapes with an ecstatic Holmes and inspired guitar riffing as the imposing rhythm section holds tight the song (a female voice also makes its shy appearance - Celtic Frost had tried it a few years ago and were accused?). A slow mourning guitar-based composition, "Lost Paradise", follows to slowly reach the end of the album with the awesome "Infernal Torment II". Great work on the guitars with many changes in the riffing as it accompanies Holmes interpreting his bleak and desperate lyrics. The production of the album isn't very good but, in my opinion, helps in making more intense the suffocating atmosphere that overruns the whole album.

One of the greatest bands in the 90s with personal sound and style had just began its delightful course. "Lost Paradise", one of the first doom/death, at a primary phase though, releases - recorded in 1989 and released in the birth of 1990, was just the beginning of what would follow. "Sorrow filled blessings?"