Author: Primož Novak
Photos: Sebastijan Videc
Video: Sebastijan Videc
Location: Zagreb / Boogaloo / Croatia
Concert date: October 14, 2017
Ticket price: 170 HRK / 200 HRK
English gothic/doom metal pioneers Paradise Lost are not resting on their laurels. Just two years after The Plague Within, they’re back with Medusa, an album that takes them back to their doom metal roots. So far it’s gotten mostly positive reactions, so expectations for the show were more than good. Paradise Lost once again stopped close to Slovenia. They’ve wowed crowds in Zagreb plenty of times before, so the Croatian capital is a logical stop on the tour. For support, Paradise Lost brought along American doom metallers Pallbearer and Portuguese sludge/doomers Sinistro.
Portugal’s Sinistro, still a young band, tried to win people over with something of their own. The heavy rhythms and guitars that come with the territory in sludge metal didn’t show anything special here. Fittingly, the whole thing thundered, though a more present bass guitar could have beefed up the sound even further. The biggest oddity about Sinistro was vocalist Patricia Andrade, who definitely put on an interesting show, having previously gathered experience acting in films and series too. The vocals themselves are undoubtedly varied, but also kind of annoying. So Sinistro are special in some way, but musically they don’t promise all that much just yet.
With Pallbearer, the music took quite a turn. The band puts a pronounced doom metal element up front, with plenty of emphasis on melody too. Their pretty long songs are varied and unpredictable. The guitars are definitely a strong factor, and so is the distorted bass, while the drums lacked any real dynamics. The band presented their current album Heartless, which doesn’t reach the quality of the first two records but solidly continues their established style. With those first two albums, they let everyone know that something was stirring on the American doom metal scene, and now they’re holding that quality more than solidly. The main problem with Pallbearer’s set was above all the dreadful sound. The band was so loud that you often couldn’t tell the instruments apart, and even earplugs didn’t help, which left the melodic vocals sounding pretty flat on top of that. Pallbearer obviously deserve another chance. After all, they’ve got interesting material for about an hour.
With Paradise Lost, there’s always the riddle of what kind of form the band will be in. Really, it all comes down to singer Nick Holmes, whose mood you can never predict, on any given day or the hour he steps on stage. The band’s repertoire is beyond doubt, too. This time they served up current songs plus a medley of the hits PL are known for. There’s nothing to complain about in the band’s form, at least on the instrumental side, while Nick Holmes was merely average. Mostly you couldn’t feel any power in the vocals, and he wasn’t loud enough either. The other members were solidly energetic, as expected. Bassist Stephen Edmondson is really the only static one, while guitarist Greg Mackintosh was, as always, in his own world with his melancholic melodies, and rhythm guitarist Aaron Aedy was smiling the whole time and moving around quite a bit. Praise goes to current drummer Waltteri Väyrynen, who played the older material with ease, and on the new stuff proved he has plenty of imagination and knows how to bring a lot of dynamics even to slow songs. With the current album, Paradise Lost gained a lot. Their repertoire now touches on morbid doom metal, melancholic gothic metal and even something gentler. Over their career, Paradise Lost have also tried synth pop, which they no longer play live. With 15 albums to date, the band can hardly satisfy every taste, but with Remembrance, Shadowkings, As I Die, Embers Fire and the closing Say Just Words, the older fans got their fill, proving that new and old fans count equally.
All in all, the Paradise Lost, Pallbearer and Sinistro show at Zagreb’s Boogaloo club was solidly pulled off, but it would have left a better impression with better sound. All we can do is hope they fix that by next time.
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