Classic Rock Magazine and Kerrang Magazine have both released their reviews of Paradise Lost's 20th Anniversary show in London last month, and we have posted them here for you to read!
Classic Rock Magazine
The joyless prospect of seeing three of the world's most professionally forlorn bands doesn't read on any faces here tonight. Packed to the rafters and brimming with a black-swathed legion, the show that's united these 20 year veterans known to the fans as the Unholy Trinity and forefathers of genuinely gothic metal is a sea of happy faces.It's easy to tell why. These blackened festivities - beginning with Anathema's eternal balladry, a distant relation to their origins as a doom-bringing metal band - are undeniable testament to the ability the mere appearance of these names still has to captivate and enchant.
My Dying Bride bring the mood down to that of a funeral wake, singer Aaron Stainthorpe's baritone croon and Shakespearean stage presence conveying a despair only experienced in hell. And yeah, that's exactly what you want. It drops the considerable onus of topping such cheerless delights on Paradise Lost who, on merit of being perhaps the most successful and accessible merchants of such melancholic wares, cause a bone crushing surge towards the stage.
Perhaps it's that they're celebrating their 20th anniversary, or that singer Nick Holmes is still the perfect combination thespian presence and devil horn-worthy delivery. It gets heads banging. Forget the darkness, the only mood here is jubilation.
Kerrang Magazine
Tonight may be a party for the 20th birthday of one of British metal's finest institutions, Paradise Lost, but with a supporting cast like this - the Peaceville Records 'Big Three' of doom - there's an added treat of seeing how these three bands from the same stable have grown through constant innovation and a fearless attitude towards change.Take Anathema. Starting from the same murky doom/death pool as Paradise Lost and My Dying Bride in the early '90s, they've morphed into a far shallower, proggier beast, although old and new still share the same thread of heart-wrenching melancholy, meaning that older material like 'Sleepless' and the always superb 'A Dying Wish' lose nothing when filtered through Anathema 2008.
Given that they've spent their entire career uncovering new, blacker shades of darkness, it's no surprise that when My Dying Bride singer Aaron Stainthorpe spits lines like 'Look at your God, look at the way he stands', it's with the frustration and venom of a man who looks like his soul is trying to wrestle its way out of his body.
Admittedly, nine-minute gloom fests like 'The Dreadful Hours' may not be the easiest things to swallow, but the discomfort they cause is without question.
"I hope you're gonna clean up the sound on that thing before you put it on YouTube. Yeah, you with the camcorder!"
Is PL mainman Nick Holmes serious? Or is this the Jacob's cracker-dry humour that's earned him the reputation as Brit metal's Victor Meldrew? Either way, when he's using his voice for belting out Paradise Lost classics like 'Hallowed Land', 'Gothic' and 'No Celebration', the man and his band are on fire this evening. How songs as dark as 'As I Die' can be so joyous is a riddle, but it's this ability to carve huge choruses out of gloom that's made them so vital for two decades, and as they're joined by MDB and Anathema to spray chamapagne everywhere, F1 style, you're left reeling that a night so full of gloomy music can turn into such an ace celebration. Brilliant stuff.
KKKKK
