Paradise Lost: Believe in Nothing (Nuclear Blast)

The Nuclear Blast label has apparently decided it’s time for us all to revisit UK-based doom/death/gothic metal band Paradise Lost’s gothic rock era, and I am perfectly OK with that. The band had their ups (see Draconian Times) and downs (Host) but as a whole that was one of their best eras. 2001’s Believe in Nothing (aka the one with all the bees) is the latest Paradise Lost album to be reissued, and it’s a great, if overlooked, example of their gothic rock/metal days.

Where 1999’s Host was essentially a Depeche Mode album, Believe in Nothing put guitars back in the mix and set the band on the same path as Draconian Times and One Second. It’s still atmospheric and melodic, but it has a metal tone overall, or at least a harder rocking one. It definitely has some of the band’s catchiest songs, and whether they’re faster “Look At Me Now” or slower “Fader,” they have real staying power.

Believe in Nothing was exactly the course correction Paradise Lost needed at the time, and it holds up remarkably well nearly two decades later. It’s not the game changer Draconian Times was, and I’d argue the follow-up Symbol of Life was even better, but this album works really well if you’re into the gothic rock and metal sound at all. Of course if you only liked the doomy, deathlike Paradise Lost albums you had to wait a while for that sound to come around again.

Reissue Notes: Nuclear Blast reissued this one, and aside from a really impressive remastering job, it isn’t quite what it should be. It has a new cover image (a less striking one, in my opinion, but it is kind of cool), but as with the Host reissue the digipack looks so cheap and disposable. It does have a pair of bonus tracks (b-sides from the Mouth and Fader singles), but each of those singles had two b-sides, and there was plenty of room on this disc for two more tracks. That kind of half-assed effort bugs me. It also seems like the band had no involvement in the project whatsoever, so the liner notes are next to useless.

Warning: The US version of this reissue is only available on CD-R. Find a European source you trust (I used Nuclear Blast directly) if you want the real thing.