In a recent conversation with India’s Sinusoidal Music, Paradise Lost frontman Nick Holmes opened up about the creative process behind the band’s 17th album, Ascension.
Released on September 19 through Nuclear Blast Records, the album marks their first full-length in five years after 2020’s Obsidian. Produced by guitarist Gregor Mackintosh and mixed/mastered by Lawrence Mackrory, the record represents both persistence and reinvention for the gothic metal pioneers.
Reflecting on the band’s writing approach, Holmes explained (via Blabbermouth): “When we're writing songs, it's just about what we like as fans of music. It's first and foremost — we kind of set the bar very high. We are our own biggest critics on every level. So if I'm writing lyrics, I like to write lyrics that I like to read, and I change them often — I change them constantly, in fact, as I'm writing them, and I come back to them again and again… There's nothing done by accident. We spend a lot of time arranging songs and going back to them again.”
The road to Ascension was shaped by pauses, reflection, and rewrites. Holmes continued: “We had quite a lot of time at work on this album, time to kind of reflect on. And a lot of the songs were written with big gaps in between. Obviously, we had the pandemic for two years, but we started writing, I think, prior to that, and then we picked it up after that again. And then we realized we didn't like what we'd written, so we changed again and then started again. But after all these years, it's always hard to get the ball rolling. And we never really look back at what we've done in the past… It's always hard to get the ball rolling, but once it starts, you get there eventually, which we have done, I guess.”
The five-year gap between Obsidian and Ascension stretched longer than usual for the band. Holmes explained that touring cycles typically push releases three years apart. This time, though, the pandemic played its part — and side projects filled the space.
“It was about five years [between the two albums]. It's usually kind of around three years between each album, because you write and record and then you tour it for 18 months or perhaps longer, depending on if you go to America, and you spend more time in America, which we haven't done that for a while. In the two years [during the pandemic], we did a side kind of project, Greg and myself, with the Host project. And then we re-recorded [Paradise Lost’s] 'Icon' album as well [for its 30th anniversary].”
When asked about the toughest part of crafting the new record, Holmes pointed to the initial writing stages: “Like I said before, I think it's when you start writing, it's really difficult. You kind of don't know what's going on for the first few songs — it's a bit of a gray area — but then, when you have maybe three or four songs, you start to get a gist of the writing process. So I always think of it as a snowball rolling down a mountainside, collecting snow, and it gets bigger and bigger. It kind of reminds me of that."
"But, yeah, there's so many albums as well. You don't wanna repeat yourself, but whatever we do, we just sound like Paradise Lost. I do think we have a sound, mainly Greg's guitar, really, is the sound of the band, I think — his lead guitar playing. But I think just starting writing is always a bit kind of daunting. And that's based on just the amount of time we've been around and the amount of albums we've written,” he added.
Ascension shows how Paradise Lost continues to evolve while staying grounded in the essence of their sound — a balance that comes from years of experience and self-criticism, but also from the willingness to tear things down and start over.
