- Country: United Kingdom
- Style: Death metal / Doom metal
- Label: Century Media Records
- Release date: 31 October 2011
Grief made this record. Gregor Mackintosh lost his father to cancer in December 2009, and the title of A Fragile King refers directly to that illness. For the Paradise Lost guitarist, it was also a return to the music he grew up on before gothic doom made his name: crust, early death metal and the heaviest kind of doom.
He chose his company well. Hamish Glencross of My Dying Bride, Adrian Erlandsson of At the Gates and Paradise Lost, bassist Scoot and guitarist Mully made up the band, and Mackintosh took on lead vocals himself. Recorded between December 2010 and April 2011, the album splits into two moods. “Cathedrals of Dread” and “Humanity Wept” stomp along with the rough d-beat swing of old Swedish death metal, while “Desecration”, “My Black Siberia” and “The Grim Irony” slow down into cold, mournful doom carried by harmonised leads.
The slow songs are the reason to return. Anyone who misses the bleakest corners of early Paradise Lost will hear echoes of them here, played with the anger of someone who had just lost something.
Best tracks:
Desecration
Cathedrals of Dread
My Black Siberia
The Grim Irony
Author’s rating: 8.0/10
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