Personally, I didn’t expect that. After the pop-dance experiments in the band Paradise Lost itself, the musicians seem to have mended their ways and started writing heavy music. Not only that, Nick Holmes, as you know, went to sing in the excellent death metal band Bloodbath, and Greg Mackintosh started creating his own extreme metal projects: first Vallenfyre and then Strigoi. And everything seemed fine, but a creative person is an enigmatic person, and the two friends again were drawn to dance experiments. So meet Host – the new project from Nick Holmes and Greg Mackintosh of Paradise Lost, who will release their debut album “IX” on February 24, 2023 via Nuclear Blast. One of the Tomorrow Sky singles has already been released and a video of it can be seen below.
In general, if you remember the Paradise Lost 1999 album called Host, you partly know what we’re talking about. Apparently, having a lot of free time during the pandemic, Greg remembered that he also likes gothic and dance music, called Nick to join in and the result was the project Host. Here is how Mackintosh himself commented on the new project:
Host is something that I had in mind for a few years but never had the time to do it justice until now. It’s taking the concept of what we attempted to do on the Paradise Lost album “Host” but approaching it in a modern context. It’s part ’80s goth, part electro, part rock but none of them specifically. The emphasis is on hooks and atmosphere. It’s quite a challenge to make miserable music catchy and hopefully we’ve achieved that to some degree.
This is how the label describes the debut album:
Their debut foray, “IX”, is an eclectic, stirring collection of songs that forges a unified front of darkness that is interwoven with orchestration and textures. Complemented by carefully placed guitar lines, the album is yet another realization of Mackintosh’s songwriting intuitiveness and restless creative spirit. To create the songs on “IX”, Mackintosh relied on the approach of starting with a piano line. His self-described “simple” chord sequences or piano lines were then volleyed to Holmes for vocal ideas. Once the pair found a direction, Mackintosh embellished each song with lavish but haunting soundscapes —often blurring the distinction between guitar and keyboards.
Host:
- Nick Holmes – Vocals
- Greg Mackintosh – Guitars, Synths & Programming
- Wretched Soul
- Tomorrow’s Sky
- Divine Emotion
- Hiding From Tomorrow
- A Troubled Mind
- My Only Escape
- Years of Suspicion
- Inquisition
- Instinct
