I actually wanted to go to Carcass and Hell in Tilburg these evening but unfortunately it was sold out before I got tickets, so I went to Paradise Lost in stead. They were celebrating their 25 years of existence with this tour. The package consisted of two more bands.

First of all there was Katatonia. I missed half their set due to traffic problems around Rotterdam, but that was no big deal. I only care for their early material and have happily ignored the material after Brave Murder Day. And this time they would play a Viva Emptiness set – not that they play much of their doom/death era anyway these days. This probably can be qualified as girly metal since the number of girls in the audience is significantly higher than an average death metal gig. Anyway I watch a song of five and that was ok.

The second band was the Italian gothic metal outfit Lacuna Coil and they all were wearing the same shirt. I should’ve skipped this al together as it is really boring, straightforward rock with terrible male vocals. The female vocals were okay though.

Nevermind, there was still Paradise Lost. They returned to their typical doom metal style of the mid nineties a few albums back and seem to do that quite well. They played a song of all their albums except Believe in Nothing. Starting with Mortals Watch the Day is a really fine way to start. Following it up with So Much is Lost from the wanky electronics period is much less interesting. Good thing there was still Gothic, Remembrance, True Believe, and even Rotting Misery off the debut album. Gregor Macintosh lets his guitar wail throughout all the songs which from the trade mark sound of Paradise Lost.  Nick Holmes’ vocals on the other hand haven’t been all that good ever since he stopped grunting decades ago. But his grunts nowadays are far less than impressive. A solid gig, and actually I find Gregor’s side-project Vallenfyre far more interesting.