Some might call this album a "return to form", although in my opinion this great band never left in the first place. I think it's a great album, not only for its listenability and top-notch production, but for the fact that the band continues to progress through experimentations without sacrificing their trademark "dark" edge.

They start the album off with a strong statement in the menacing "Isolate," a catchy and heavy fist-pumper. "Two Worlds," "Perfect Mask", "Pray Nightfall" and "Symbol of Life" are all very strong points, making good use of heavy guitars, strings, and programming. Nick Holmes gets better with every album as a "clean" singer, and happily throws in some on-key growling when appropriate. The guitars in "Self Obsessed" (especially the lead) are great-- they take me back to the glory days when this band wrote amazing guitar-driven songs. It's too bad the lyrics are a little silly. One of the very best efforts on the album is the superb cover of the Dead Can Dance song "Xavier." The band continues its tradition of excellent covers here, as they take this amazing song and make it their own without cutting out the "otherworldly" atmosphere that Dead Can Dance create. Weak points like the cheesy chorus in "Erased" and the boring "Mystify" are easily overlooked in favor of the album's strengths.

Rhys Fulber's production work is very impressive, especially in light of John Fryer's disappointing effort on the band's previous record, "Believe in Nothing." The guitar sound is more satisfyingly thick throughout than it has been since "Draconian Times" (1995) It's also great to hear real live drums making an impression and standing out again in the music. The drum machines of the previous three albums made for some truly excellent dark songs, but it was a shame to have a good drummer like Lee Morris in the background instead of the forefront.

Perhaps the best thing about this album is its return to heavier music without regressing. As much as I love "Icon" and "Draconian Times" (see my "DT" review, hehehe) I would have been disappointed if they had fallen back on music they wrote seven years earlier. Such desperate retro- grasping is the sign of a band in decline, and this album shows in spades that Paradise Lost are still going strong and moving forward.

The new Paradise Lost album "Symbol of Life" is by far the best album of 2002 for me.

It reminds the listener of the band's great ability to churn out metal of the heaviest and darkest order, this is their heaviest since "Draconian Times", and when you remember "Believe in Nothing" ended with "World Pretending", "Symbol of Life" had to be the face of things to come. Witness the true return to form of Paradise Lost!

The album features songs more typical of the Paradise Lost of late, slow, atmospheric and very nice guitared songs such as "Pray Nightfall" and "Symbol of Life" the title track, demonstrating the nice futuristic sheen presented on "Host". There are crunching, out and out metal songs such as "Two Worlds", "Self Obsessed", "No Celebration" and the strange, disturbing end song "Channel for the Pain", a very nice thrashy number indeed. Another strange but very effective song is the opener "Isolate". This song is not typical of Paradise Lost but carries a very nice groove nevertheless. "Perfect Mask" is a brilliant, slightly industrial song, with a superb chorus carrying the best vocal line on the album. "Erased" posseses a very nice piano introducton with very nice female vocals by Joanna Stevens, adding a great atmosphere. "Mystify" presents one of the album's most effective chorus, and a very nice bassline carrying the low end strongly through.

This leads me to my favourite song on the album "Primal". This is a song unlike any other by Paradise Lost. Slow, crunching, obscure chording and an air of hopelessness make this my outright favourite on the album, along with the brilliant title track, "Symbol of Life".

Other standout songs on ths album are the brilliantly executed, very downbeat "No Celebration" and the equally despairing, slow brooding number "Pray Nightfall".

I've picked up the digipack version, comprised of two closing cover songs: Dead Can Dance' "Xavier", a corker of a song, rather suited for remake by Paradise Lost. The second is Bronski Beat's "Small town Boy". This is the best cover the band have made, and closes the album on an amazing high. The album's official closer is "Channel for the Pain".

With Nick Holmes' use of his older style yelling and grunts coupled with his great singing progress, Steve Edmondson's bass turned up yet another notch to growl and tear its way through the subsonic end, Greg Makintosh' guitar leads and melodies coupled with Aaron Aedy's unbelievably accurate rhythmn chops and Lee Morris' returning ghost strokes, offbeats and great bass pedal flicks, the musicianship on "Symbol Of Life" is absolutely superb, this is the greatest album of 2002, and possibly my favourite album ever.

Paradise Lost return to the dark, experience the realm of the black!

When I first heard Paradise Lost, I was blown away with their album Draconian Times. It brought me to a whole new perspective of music. I think that this album did the exact same for me at an even higher level. The music is just simply unique. "Pray Nightfall" is probably one of the best songs I've ever heard in my entire life. In songs like "Isolate," "Erased," and "Perfect Mask," they manage to bring an electronic goth sound to this album in their own personal style. They include cover songs like "Xavier" by Dead Can Dance and "Small Town Boy" by Sommerville, Forest, Cole. All I have to say about this album is that it is simply amazing. If you want an album that will, like Draconian Times, blow you away with originality, then buy this cd.

this is the best cd from this band since "draconian times" they have finally figured out how to combine their electronics with their orignal sound. this album was very much a step in the right direction. my favorite songs include "two worlds" and "perfect mask". this album just rocks, all hail to paradise lost.

Warning to those who buy: this CD (from Koch) has Copy Control. May only play on your CD player and NOT your computer. However, very good music.

From the back: