PARADISE LOST To Get Into 'Serious Songwriting' After 'Icon' 30th-Anniversary Shows

In a new interview with La Mesa Del Metal, PARADISE LOST guitarist Aaron Aedy spoke about the progress of the songwriting sessions for the follow-up to the band's 2020 LP "Obsidian". He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "It's still very early. I mean, we've only got the first few tracks. And to be honest, even when we get… usually when we get halfway through, we still don't know what the other half's gonna be like. There's a general thing, but… The thing is there's only been preliminary writing so far, so there's a few songs, but once we finish touring this year and start finishing the album next year, it might change slightly again. This year we've re-recorded [PARADISE LOST's 1993 album] 'Icon' [for its 30th anniversary], which has been great fun to do, actually."

He continued: "I love revisiting the old albums. 'Cause obviously there's usually about three or four [songs] that you've played live for definite, and then there's some other gems and you think, 'Oh, God, we never played this live. Why not? It's such a good song.' So that's been really good fun to do. And then we're gonna be doing some 'Icon' shows at the end of the year. And I think once we've got the 'Icon' shows out of the way, that's when the band sort of locks down into serious songwriting. I think there'll be a few more songs done before then, but, yeah, once Greg [Mackintosh, guitar] and Nick [Holmes, vocals] — they prefer to write when they're in songwriting mode, if you know what I mean, and they've got the time and they're not thinking about concerts or anything. They can do it a bit, but when they seriously get into that songwriting mode, that's when it happens to its fullest."

"Icon" marked a departure from the death-doom sound of PARADISE LOST's early work and was the last album to feature Matthew Archer on drums.

In February 2018, "Icon" was inducted into the Decibel "Hall Of Fame", with the magazine naming it influential to the development of the gothic metal subgenre.

PARADISE LOST will embark on the "Embers Of Europe" tour in the fall. Support on the trek will come from MY DYING BRIDE.

This past March, PARADISE LOST welcomed Guido Zima Montanarini as their official new drummer.

Last September, Finnish drummer Waltteri Väyrynen left PARADISE LOST to join OPETH. At the time, he issued a statement saying that his decision involved "absolutely no bad blood or drama whatsoever."

"Obsidian" was released in May 2020 via Nuclear Blast.

Photo credit: Anne C. Swallow for Nuclear Blast Records