I will never understand why people get so picky about it. It's beautiful, and it sounds 100% Paradise Lost despite its synth-poppish catchy tunes. Uh, whatever... :\

Behind the grey is the best song for me... a low 8 but still an 8 from a band that always plays in high standards...

Was expecting to be garbage, but it's better than any pop album tbh. There are some boring tracks in the album, but it's good nonetheless. Still, I just pretend this isn't a Paradise Lost album.

My favorites are Behind The Grey, Made The Same, Year Of Summer, Host.

If they make a metal version of any of the songs mentioned above...

For some reason, not sure, I like it. I actually enjoy listening to it every time, while it is generic, extremely simplistic, non-metal stuff. Try it, you may feel the same.

It's surprisingly good pop/electronica indeed.

Sure! people used to say it's shit because "it's not metull blablabla" but it's a really good Paradise Lost album.

236 votes and a rating of 7 says it's a good album which I agree. I would probably rate it a 7.5, I can't decide whether to give it a 7 or an 8

A 7/10 for this peach? Jesus Christ on a bike, this is almost tragic.

I went into this with an open mind and coming from In Requiem to this, wow this is different but the orchestrations are beautiful and i quite like it actually.

Favorite track : Nothing Sacred

Host, together with its follow up constitute the peak of Paradise Lost's sell out phase, which would extend itself until the mid 2000s in a less popish manner but still commercial as hell. To this day, I wonder how so many people still consider this a decent effort and why so many people refuse to think of it as a sell-out pop album?

No guys, no metal here. One Second had like 10% metal (due to heavy guitars) and 90% pop (song structures), but this one has zip to do with metal. But then again not ALL pop albums are bad. Some of them do have some charm. Some of them are quite well written. But no this one. This one is stale as fuck. A one-note plastic pop album like this one is as far as way as it can get from brilliant pop music. Including pop in metal music.

The only good point? Nick no longer sings off-key on this one. At least, for the most part. But what's the point in singing good clean vocals if you are going to waste them on generic pop tunes, with no hooks whatsoever that many other bands did in the past (worse, as bad or better than this turd)? No point in having talent if you waste it.

What's truly astonishing is that this band actually managed to release great albums a decade after this turd was released. You can count on your fingers the number of bands that recovered from a sell-out streak of albums or from a period of low quality efforts.

P.S. Part of the reason why fans show decreased interest in PL in the 2000s is because of their sell out phase and the very low quality of their sell-out efforts. When they returned to metal around 2002-2004, they still played a very commercialized, modern kind of gothic metal which only worked on FDU-DUU. The Plague Within is their TRUE comeback album. And hopefully, they follow it well with Medusa.

Written by ManiacBlasphemer on 22.06.2017 at 17:50

Host, together with its follow up constitute the peak of Paradise Lost's sell out phase, which would extend itself until the mid 2000s in a less popish manner but still commercial as hell. To this day, I wonder how so many people still consider this a decent effort and why so many people refuse to think of it as a sell-out pop album?

No guys, no metal here. One Second had like 10% metal (due to heavy guitars) and 90% pop (song structures), but this one has zip to do with metal. But then again not ALL pop albums are bad. Some of them do have some charm. Some of them are quite well written. But no this one. This one is stale as fuck. A one-note plastic pop album like this one is as far as way as it can get from brilliant pop music. Including pop in metal music.

The only good point? Nick no longer sings off-key on this one. At least, for the most part. But what's the point in singing good clean vocals if you are going to waste them on generic pop tunes, with no hooks whatsoever that many other bands did in the past (worse, as bad or better than this turd)? No point in having talent if you waste it.

What's truly astonishing is that this band actually managed to release great albums a decade after this turd was released. You can count on your fingers the number of bands that recovered from a sell-out streak of albums or from a period of low quality efforts.

P.S. Part of the reason why fans show decreased interest in PL in the 2000s is because of their sell out phase and the very low quality of their sell-out efforts. When they returned to metal around 2002-2004, they still played a very commercialized, modern kind of gothic metal which only worked on FDU-DUU. The Plague Within is their TRUE comeback album. And hopefully, they follow it well with Medusa.

Personally I really like Host while it is true it is a total UFO in their discography. For me it still retains the tragic essence of the band. You still have to admit that lyrics like "As we wait to perish, turn to ashes" are typical Holmes lyrics, no?

I'd like to point out the difficult context of the release time of this album and the next one, Believe In Nothing. What happened in that period was that they lost their musical direction because they were lost in their life as well.

I've seen them in concert in 1999 to support the album, and it was clear for me the band members were not well (It was said that the whole band was on antidepressants, it was that bad). Nick Holmes was incredibly thin and frail, really not like his usual self. He lost his father and became a father himself that year, it pretty much screwed him for a long while.

I wouldn't say Host is the sell-out album, I'd say Believe In Nothing is. At least the band still own up Host but they have repeatedly said that they don't give a damn about Believe In Nothing and that they do not have much recollection of that album anyway. They had to record the album to be freed from EMI.

Their music just went back to their usual style as the situation went back to normal. I guess they wisened up with age.

That said I've stopped listening to them since Faith Divides Us - Death Unites Us.

Written by Polaria on 23.06.2017 at 20:37

Personally I really like Host while it is true it is a total UFO in their discography. For me it still retains the tragic essence of the band. You still have to admit that lyrics like "As we wait to perish, turn to ashes" are typical Holmes lyrics, no?

I'd like to point out the difficult context of the release time of this album and the next one, Believe In Nothing. What happened in that period was that they lost their musical direction because they were lost in their life as well.

I've seen them in concert in 1999 to support the album, and it was clear for me the band members were not well (It was said that the whole band was on antidepressants, it was that bad). Nick Holmes was incredibly thin and frail, really not like his usual self. He lost his father and became a father himself that year, it pretty much screwed him for a long while.

I wouldn't say Host is the sell-out album, I'd say Believe In Nothing is. At least the band still own up Host but they have repeatedly said that they don't give a damn about Believe In Nothing and that they do not have much recollection of that album anyway. They had to record the album to be freed from EMI.

Their music just went back to their usual style as the situation went back to normal. I guess they wisened up with age.

That said I've stopped listening to them since Faith Divides Us - Death Unites Us.

Judging from the fact that they released One Second earlier, that is clearly not an UFO. It was a calculated attempt to sell out. From looks and figures, to the sound, the movement was clearly profit oriented. How much success it had, I personally do not care. As for the tragic essence and the lyrics, they do not compensate the non-existent songwriting. Lyrics may count more in poetry, but when it comes to music, the songwriting is the one that matter, along with a decent production that compliments it. Also, the brand of synthpop that they embraced was so derivative, so stale, even among the artists that handle this genre they seemed like a seventh rate band. Literally hundreds of artists played the same moronic, stale kind of music before PL started to take interest in it.

I do not give a hoot about the context, to me this is an excuse. You are having personal difficulties? Take a break, sort them out, not sell out shamelessly. That is if you are a professional who cares about the music and doesn't just move through the motions.

Host is not much different from Believe in Nothing, nor from One Second, all of them are pop oriented, sugary gothic wannabe metal albums with a clear attempt to attract fans of more commercial music. The context may have been bad, from a musical perspective, considering that most of the 90s goth bands were going more commercial and the gothic music was declining in success.

I wouldn't call Symbol of Life or the self-titled as a return to form either. They did cast aside the pop undertones, but they continued to play a brand of commercial gothic metal. It wasn't until until they released Faith Divides Us when they started to regain their former glory, and they recovered it completely with The Plague Within, which is hands down, the best they did since Draconian Times.

I wasn't expecting the jump from One Second to Host to be honest. A lot of other Gothic bands were playing a bit with electronica at the time without ever falling into full electronica mode like it happened for Host. They could have well decided after One Second that they were done with electronica and going back to metal.

Looking back at that album from 1999 in 2017 makes it easy to see what the band should have or shouldn't have done.
I am not sure for example that
(1) signing with a major (EMI) was a right move
(2) releasing Believe in Nothing was a good idea (but like I wrote that's the consequence of trying to get out of (1))

Written by ManiacBlasphemer on 24.06.2017 at 01:25

It wasn't until until they released Faith Divides Us when they started to regain their former glory.

Funnily enough It was at that exact point I stopped listening to them because the album didn't appeal to me. I did listen to the subsequent albums, but each time I thought that if I wanted to listen to this kind of music I'd rather listen to their earlier discography.

My definition of sugary commercial Gothic would be more HIM than Paradise Lost though.

Quote:
That is if you are a professional who cares about the music and doesn't just move through the motions.

Continuing to release the same content to the point of producing manufactured death/doom/gothic metal can also be called "move through the motions".
Personally, I like this album a lot and fully agree with Polaria that most bands that ventured into electronica never did it fully like Paradise Lost did it with Host (Theatre Of Tragedy could be another one to mention).

Considering the lack fo support they got, it's hard to call it a sell-out because we completely lack the perception of the band in contrast with say... Metallica where it was well known that they were aiming for a commercial rock sound to gain public. Holmes was never shy of his liking for bands like Depeche Mode so I can picture perfectly how he wanted to somehow mix the styles together. What people thought of it simply falls under personal taste though.

To me these guys really came back to the old sound with The Plague Within btw. It's the period from Believe In Nothing to In Requiem which I have a hard time to swallow.

Written by X-Ray Rod on 25.06.2017 at 11:37

Continuing to release the same content to the point of producing manufactured death/doom/gothic metal can also be called "move through the motions".
Personally, I like this album a lot and fully agree with Polaria that most bands that ventured into electronica never did it fully like Paradise Lost did it with Host (Theatre Of Tragedy could be another one to mention).

Considering the lack fo support they got, it's hard to call it a sell-out because we completely lack the perception of the band in contrast with say... Metallica where it was well known that they were aiming for a commercial rock sound to gain public. Holmes was never shy of his liking for bands like Depeche Mode so I can picture perfectly how he wanted to somehow mix the styles together. What people thought of it simply falls under personal taste though.

To me these guys really came back to the old sound with The Plague Within btw. It's the period from Believe In Nothing to In Requiem which I have a hard time to swallow.

I'd rather have a band continuing the sound they pioneered/created rather than switch to a commercial sound, for sell-out purposes. This kind of reasoning is the same with what the Metallica dwarf has been shitting around for years, to excuse the obvious and shameless sell-out that was TBA and what followed after it. He never heard of 'gradual change', and nor these guys.

I fail to see what is so good about this album. You can hear the same tunes and melodies in every Z-rate synth pop band. One of the main reason bands continue to persevere in making bad albums is because fans are too quick to give them the benefit or the doubt, or too deaf to distinguish a good album from a bad one, or a sell-out from a non-sell-out.

Also, just because they did not get the support they expected that does not make this a non-sell-out. It was a sell-out attempt, which failed (thank god!). God knows where would they have went if this formula succeeded. Thanks for its failures, we got some good albums, albeit more than a decade afterwards.

You have to put this change into context. Gothic metal was declining in sales and popularity by the end of the 90s and early 2000s. A lot of the pioneering bands started selling out, whether we speak about PL, Tiamat, ToT or Moonspell (their mid phase), they all went for a more commercial sound, the kind of pop that would still blend with their image. The only exception was Type O Negative, although their quality output decreased significantly after World Coming Down.