Icon by Paradise Lost
Icon is the fourth studio album recorded by British doom metal/gothic band Paradise Lost in 1993. This marked the end of their early death/doom sound. It was also the last album to feature Matthew Archer on drums. In 2008, speaking to Kerrang! about the album's music, Nick Holmes remembered: "We were pretty much the first band to coin the phrase 'gothic metal' so I don't have a problem with that label. We've actually done gothier albums than Icon, but if people want to say that it sums up something up that's fine with me. At the time there was also black metal, thrash metal and everyone wanted to describe what type of something was so we went 'Okay, we've got The Sisters of Mercy elements in our music, let's call it goth metal'. We were getting better as musicians as well and I was hopefully getting better as a vocalist. When that happens you want to fine-tune what you're doing. It's also about not wanting to get stuck or pigeonholed into one particular musical place. We've kept the whole gothic thing going right throughout our career, but we did want to do something a little different. With the vocals, a lot of it was kind of shouting in key as opposed to just shouting, its okay singing like Beelzebub, but your voice can get into trouble if you have a big tour."
If <i>Black Market</i> represented a nostalgic Ricky Rozay, <i>Rather You Than Me</i> reverses course. A-list rappers are all over this, with Chris Rock even adding a touch of comic relief. Moments of vengeance are embellished by a clarity that comes from experience. Ross paints a vivid picture—the brown bags, ankle monitors, pulling the ragtop back at a red light. “Apple of My Eye” and “Game Ain’t Based on Sympathy” contemplate the trap life as smoke twirls in the air. <i>Rather You Than Me</i> is the Bawse’s Michael Corleone moment: “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in".
