PARADISE LOST
Biography and discography of Paradise Lost, the gothic metal pioneers formed in Halifax, England, in 1988, with a page for each of their seventeen studio albums from the 1990 debut Lost Paradise to Ascension in 2025, including running orders, CD details, liner notes and a record of their concerts in Japan.
Biography
PARADISE LOST
Biography
Paradise Lost formed in Halifax, West Yorkshire, in the north of England, in 1988. They began with a slow, heavy doom-death sound, and early records such as their second album, Gothic (1991), soon marked them out as pioneers of gothic metal. Their own biography puts their album sales above two million and traces their influence as far as Cradle of Filth and HIM. Nick Holmes on vocals, Gregor Mackintosh on lead guitar, Aaron Aedy on rhythm guitar and Steve Edmondson on bass have been there since the start; only the drummers have changed. Their seventeenth album, Ascension, came out in September 2025, and in October 2026 they return to Japan for the first time in nearly thirty years.
Formation and the Peaceville years (1988-1991)
Five musicians formed the band in Halifax in 1988: Nick Holmes, Gregor Mackintosh, Aaron Aedy, Steve Edmondson and the drummer Matthew Archer. According to the biography the band published on their own site in 1999, the groups they played with at first were hardcore punk bands such as Extreme Noise Terror, and while everyone around them competed on speed, Paradise Lost chose to play as slowly as they could.
Peaceville Records released their debut, Lost Paradise, on 5 February 1990, and the second album, Gothic, on 19 March 1991. That record brought in an orchestra and a female voice, and the band's present-day biography says it was their early albums, the aptly named Gothic above all, weaving shadowy melody and atmosphere into the weight, that quickly marked them out as the pioneers of gothic metal.
The Music for Nations years (1992-1998)
After moving to Music for Nations they released Shades of God on 14 July 1992 and Icon in September 1993. The artist profile of Marquee, their Japanese label in later years, names Icon as one of the records that made Paradise Lost known as an icon of gothic metal, a decisive album after which their popularity rose quickly. The founding drummer Matthew Archer left after Icon, and Lee Morris took his place in 1994.
The band's present-day biography describes the fifth album, Draconian Times (1995), as the record whose huge, lush sound conquered the metal mainstream. The sixth, One Second, released on 14 July 1997, brought electronics to the fore, and according to the 1999 biography it was a top-ten album in many of Europe's main markets. Marquee writes that each of these two albums was followed by concerts in Japan.
The EMI and GUN years (1999-2005)
The seventh album, Host, came out on 24 May 1999 as their first for EMI Electrola, and the 1999 biography introduced it as their most adventurous work so far, fully embracing the electronics of its predecessor; Marquee describes it as a record that moved far from gothic metal and still won the band new listeners. After the eighth album, Believe in Nothing, on 26 February 2001, they moved to GUN / Supersonic Records and released the ninth, Symbol of Life, on 21 October 2002.
Lee Morris left in March 2004 and Jeff Singer joined. Marquee sees the first album with Singer, the tenth, Paradise Lost, released on 17 March 2005, as the record that brought the band back to metal.
The Century Media years (2006-2016)
The eleventh album, In Requiem, released on 21 May 2007, was their first for Century Media Records. Marquee presents it as a deliberate turn back towards their earlier sound, a hit above all in Europe that put Paradise Lost back at the head of the scene as an icon of gothic metal. Their concert at KOKO in London on 12 April 2007 came out in 2008 on CD and DVD as The Anatomy of Melancholy. Singer left in August 2008, the twelfth album, Faith Divides Us - Death Unites Us (2009), was recorded with the session drummer Peter Damin, and Adrian Erlandsson joined as a full member in March 2009.
In 2011 the band played a run of concerts performing Draconian Times in full, and released the London show on the DVD Draconian Times MMXI. The thirteenth album, Tragic Idol, followed on 24 April 2012, the compilation Tragic Illusion 25 marked the band's twenty-fifth anniversary in 2013, and the fourteenth album, The Plague Within, came out on 1 June 2015, twenty-five years after the debut. Holmes said that on The Plague Within they had drawn on the band's very earliest days, and that many of its songs had a death metal edge they had not used for a long time.
Nuclear Blast and Ascension (2017- )
Waltteri Vayrynen took over the drums in 2016, and the band released their first album for Nuclear Blast, Medusa, on 1 September 2017, followed by Obsidian on 15 May 2020. Mackintosh had promised that Medusa would be slower and more steeped in doom than anything before it. In 2021 they released At the Mill, a live album recorded from a livestream show played during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Vayrynen left in September 2022 to join Opeth, and Guido Zima Montanarini became the band's official drummer in March 2023. The same year Paradise Lost re-recorded their fourth album, Icon, for its thirtieth anniversary and released it as Icon 30 on 1 December 2023.
Montanarini left in May 2025 and Jeff Singer, the band's drummer from 2004 to 2008, came back. Ascension, the seventeenth album, followed on 19 September 2025: produced by Mackintosh, it was their first studio album in five years. In October 2026 they play Tokyo and Osaka with Draconian as special guests.
The members
The current line-up is Nick Holmes on vocals, Gregor Mackintosh on lead guitar, Aaron Aedy on rhythm guitar, Steve Edmondson on bass and Jeff Singer on drums. Everyone but Singer has been in the band since it began, and Mackintosh, the lead guitarist, is also a songwriter.
The drummers have changed many times: Matthew Archer (1988-1994), Lee Morris (1994-2004), Jeff Singer (2004-2008), Adrian Erlandsson (2009-2016), Waltteri Vayrynen (2016-2022) and Guido Zima Montanarini (2023-2025), before Singer returned in 2025.
The members also play in other bands. Holmes has sung with Bloodbath since 2014, and Mackintosh has played in Vallenfyre and Strigoi. Holmes and Mackintosh also have a project called Host, named like the seventh album.
Discography
The seventeen studio albums are listed in order of release; each has its own page with the running order, CD details and liner notes. There are also live albums — The Anatomy of Melancholy (2008), Draconian Times MMXI (2011), At the Mill (2021) and Gothic - Live at Roadburn Festival — the compilations Reflection, Drown in Darkness - The Early Demos and Tragic Illusion 25 (2013), and the 2023 re-recording Icon 30.
| Released | Title | Label |
|---|---|---|
| 5 February 1990 | Lost Paradise | Peaceville |
| 19 March 1991 | Gothic | Peaceville |
| 14 July 1992 | Shades of God | Music for Nations |
| September 1993 | Icon | Music for Nations |
| June 1995 | Draconian Times | Music for Nations |
| 14 July 1997 | One Second | Music for Nations |
| 24 May 1999 | Host | EMI Electrola |
| 26 February 2001 | Believe in Nothing | EMI Electrola |
| 21 October 2002 | Symbol of Life | GUN / Supersonic |
| 17 March 2005 | Paradise Lost | GUN / Supersonic |
| 21 May 2007 | In Requiem | Century Media |
| 25 September 2009 | Faith Divides Us - Death Unites Us | Century Media |
| 24 April 2012 | Tragic Idol | Century Media |
| 1 June 2015 | The Plague Within | Century Media |
| 1 September 2017 | Medusa | Nuclear Blast |
| 15 May 2020 | Obsidian | Nuclear Blast |
| 19 September 2025 | Ascension | Nuclear Blast |
Concerts in Japan
According to Marquee's artist profile, the band played in Japan after both Draconian Times (1995) and One Second (1997). No primary source with the dates of those concerts could be found, so they are not listed here as shows. The 2026 dates are announced by the promoter EVP as the band's return to Japan after nearly thirty years, with Draconian, on their first visit, as special guests.
| Date | Venue | Event |
|---|---|---|
| 12 October 2026 | Shibuya Stream Hall, Tokyo | Paradise Lost - Japan Tour 2026 (guests: Draconian; opening: Thyende) |
| 13 October 2026 | Shinsaibashi SUNHALL, Osaka | Paradise Lost - Japan Tour 2026 (guests: Draconian; opening: Second to None) |
About the sources
This page draws on the band's own site at paradiselost.co.uk (its band biography, the release index and each album's page), the band's official biography of 1999 as preserved by the Internet Archive, the band's Bandcamp, the artist profile of the Japanese label Marquee (AVALON) and Ward Records' product page, the promoter EVP's event page, articles on Blabbermouth.net, MusicBrainz, Wikidata and the streaming information on each Spotify entity. The English Wikipedia was used only as a pointer, and every fact taken from it was confirmed on one of these sources. Release dates are the ones in the band's own release index; each album page gives the Japanese edition's date and catalogue number.
Trivia
According to the artist profile of their Japanese label, Marquee, Paradise Lost toured Japan after both Draconian Times (1995) and One Second (1997). The promoter EVP announced the Tokyo and Osaka concerts of October 2026 as the band's return to Japan after nearly thirty years, and for Draconian, the special guests, it is a first visit to Japan.
In their earliest days Paradise Lost mostly shared bills with hardcore punk bands such as Extreme Noise Terror. Looking back in the band's official biography of 1999, Gregor Mackintosh recalled that everyone else was playing fast while they played as slowly as they could, and Nick Holmes explained that they simply wanted to do something nobody else was doing.
While they were still a cult act at home in Britain, Paradise Lost headlined the Dynamo festival in the Netherlands, and according to the band's official biography of 1999 they drew a record-breaking crowd of 135,000. The same biography says they had sold more than a million albums worldwide without relying on hype.
It was Gregor Mackintosh who brought in Steve Lyon to produce the seventh album, Host (1999): he had heard a little-known Recoil album Lyon had produced and found it full of good sounds. The band put all the keyboards through the same effects as the guitars, distorting them for a darker sound, and the first thing they asked of Lyon was to avoid every cliché, in the guitar sounds and the drum sounds alike.
Nick Holmes has explained that the title of the seventeenth album, Ascension (2025), comes from the belief in rising to a better place, from Earth to heaven. In real life, he observed, people strive from birth to reach a better place and become better people, though the only reward is death; the lyrics deal with everything life throws at us, and he is drawn to how people deal with death and what they lean on.
In 2023 the band re-recorded their 1993 fourth album, Icon, from start to finish and released it as Icon 30. As Nick Holmes explained, the deal they had signed around the time of Icon meant they would never own that music or its artwork, so reissuing it themselves for the thirtieth anniversary meant recording it again and making a new cover. The vocals were recorded at Arda Recorders in Portugal with the co-producer Jaime Gomez Arellano.
On 29 May 2025 the band announced that they had parted ways with the drummer Guido Zima Montanarini, and two days later, on 31 May, came the news that Jeff Singer was back. Singer had played with the band from 2004 to 2008, on Paradise Lost (2005) and In Requiem (2007). In his statement he said the band, its management and its fans had always made him feel part of the family, and wrote that Paradise Lost are in his blood.
In the spring of 2011 the band played Draconian Times (1995) in full at seven special concerts in Utrecht, Bochum, London, Paris, Athens and Thessaloniki. The London show at The Forum on 1 April is on the DVD Draconian Times MMXI, and the documentary of the whole tour on the same DVD was filmed by the band's bassist, Steve Edmondson.
News
HIGH PARASITE, Featuring Ex-MY DYING BRIDE Singer AARON STAINTHORPE, Release New Single “The Screams That Come”
The U.K. “death pop” outfit led by the former MY DYING BRIDE and current TOWARDS THE SINISTER frontman has released a standalone single via Spinefarm, produced by PARADISE LOST's Gregor Mackintosh and mixed by Lawrence Mackrory (MESHUGGAH, KATATONIA). It is timed to the band's mainstage performance at London Metalfest 2026 at the Electric Ballroom in Camden, on a bill headlined by CANDLEMASS, with a signing session at a nearby record shop at 7:30 p.m.
Play MVCurrent Members
Current line-up as listed on the band's official site, verified on 2026-10-01.
Albums
Paradise Lost's seventeenth album, released by Nuclear Blast on 19 September 2025: produced by Gregor Mackintosh, their first record of new songs in five years.
Paradise Lost's sixteenth studio album, from May 2020 and the last with Waltteri Vayrynen on drums.
Paradise Lost's fifteenth album, released by Nuclear Blast on 1 September 2017: slower and heavier with doom than anything before it, as Gregor Mackintosh promised.
Paradise Lost's fourteenth album, released by Century Media on 1 June 2015: dark yet melodic, with what Nick Holmes called the death metal edge of their earliest days.
Paradise Lost's thirteenth album, released by Century Media on 24 April 2012: produced by Jens Bogren, and the first studio album with Adrian Erlandsson on drums.
Paradise Lost's twelfth album, out on 25 September 2009. Jens Bogren produced it, with Peter Damin on drums.
Paradise Lost's eleventh album and their first for Century Media, released on 21 May 2007: a turn back towards their earlier sound, as their Japanese label put it.
Paradise Lost's tenth album and the one that bears the band's own name, released on 17 March 2005: the first with Jeff Singer on drums.
Paradise Lost's ninth album, released on 21 October 2002: their first for GUN / Supersonic Records, produced by Rhys Fulber.
Paradise Lost's eighth album, released by EMI Electrola on 26 February 2001 and produced by John Fryer; the band remixed and remastered it in 2018.
Paradise Lost's seventh album, released by EMI Electrola on 24 May 1999, with electronics ahead of the guitars: their most adventurous work yet, as the band said then.
Paradise Lost's sixth album, released on 14 July 1997: electronics to the fore, a top-ten album across much of Europe, and the occasion of a tour of Japan.
Paradise Lost's fifth album, issued by Music for Nations in 1995. It binds the shade of gothic rock to the weight of heavy metal in one thing.
Paradise Lost's fourth album, released in September 1993: the record that made their name in gothic metal, and the last with Matthew Archer on drums.
Paradise Lost's third album and their first for Music for Nations, released on 14 July 1992; it closes with "As I Die", later issued as a single.
Paradise Lost's second album, released by Peaceville on 19 March 1991: the record their own biography credits with making them pioneers of gothic metal.
Paradise Lost's debut album, released by Peaceville Records on 5 February 1990: the slow, heavy doom-death sound the band started out from.