Gothic Metal Albums - Page 2

Fallen layers hard guitar, piano, strings and Amy Lee’s clear voice to make darkness and accessibility coexist.

HIM's fourth album, from April 2003. Ville Valo has called it the record on which the band found their sound.

Swallow the Sun's debut album, issued by Firebox Records in 2003. This Finnish death-doom record was made in three weeks.

Jaded combines heavy guitar, cold programming and shadowed vocals to build a melancholic world.

Lacuna Coil's third album, released in September 2002, whose single "Heaven's a Lie" became their breakthrough in America.

Paradise Lost's ninth album, released on 21 October 2002: their first for GUN / Supersonic Records, produced by Rhys Fulber.

Rotting Christ's seventh album, from 2002. It returns to the speed and the raw vocals of their early black metal while keeping the gothic and doom elements of the middle records.

The Cold White Light uses heavy guitars, sunken melodies and low, melancholic vocals to explore love, death and regret.

HIM's third album, from August 2001. It came out of an eleven-month production that went badly, and it is the first HIM album with the keyboard player Janne Puurtinen on it.

Lacuna Coil's second album and their first as a six-piece, recorded with Waldemar Sorychta in late 2000 and released in January 2001.

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.

Epilogue layers gothic-metal darkness with accessible melody in To/Die/For’s characteristic way.

A five-song EP from 2000, the first with guitarist Marco Biazzi, on which Lacuna Coil first tried Italian lyrics and covered Dubstar's "Stars".

Crimson by SENTENCED: track list, Spotify player and English liner notes on METAL BOOST.

Mother Earth by WITHIN TEMPTATION: track list, Spotify player and English liner notes on METAL BOOST.

HIM's second album, published in Finland in December 1999 and internationally in January 2000. "Join Me in Death" is the single that carried the band up.

Katatonia's fourth album, issued by Peaceville in 1999. It moves away from metal towards alternative rock, and it is the turn in their course.

Lacuna Coil's first full-length album, recorded with Waldemar Sorychta in Germany in late 1998 and released by Century Media in February 1999.

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.

All Eternity introduces To/Die/For through heavy guitars, shadowed keyboards and low, emotional vocals.

Anathema's fourth album, issued by Peaceville in 1998. Its title comes from a book about conspiracies, and its subject is trust.

Lacuna Coil's first record, a six-song EP produced by Waldemar Sorychta at Woodhouse Studio in Germany and released by Century Media in 1998.

Frozen by SENTENCED: track list, Spotify player and English liner notes on METAL BOOST.

HIM's debut, published in Finland in November 1997. Nine songs are followed by fifty-six tracks of silence, with a hidden one at number 66.

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.

Enter is Within Temptation’s debut, combining sinking heavy guitar, spectral keyboards and Sharon den Adel’s clear voice.

Down moves Sentenced beyond the aggression of its early melodic death metal toward a gothic world of heavy guitar and dark melody.

Moonspell's debut, issued by Century Media in 1995. It brings the Portuguese language and the myths of its own country into gothic metal.

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.

Amok retains Sentenced’s death-metal aggression while drawing strongly on cold melody and gothic shadow.

Tiamat's fourth album, issued by Century Media on 1 September 1994. It leaves death metal behind and turns hard towards psychedelia and progressive rock.

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.

North from Here is a useful way to hear SENTENCED from a different angle within the 1993 catalogue.

Type O Negative's third album, issued by Roadrunner in 1993. It was the first record on that label to be certified gold by the RIAA.

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.

Shadows of the Past is an early Sentenced death-metal record of sinking riffs, rough growls and dark air.

Paradise Lost's debut album, released by Peaceville Records on 5 February 1990: the slow, heavy doom-death sound the band started out from.