Paradise Lost "Icon"

Icon is the fourth studio album by British heavy metal band Paradise Lost in 1993. It marked a departure from the death-doom sound of their early work, and was 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 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.

All music written and arranged by Gregor Mackintosh
Lyrics by Nick Holmes
Published by Zomba Music

Design and art direction by Stylorouge
All photography by Matt Anker

Videos were made for "Embers Fire ", "Widow" and "True Belief".

Recording information:

Recorded in June & July, 1993 at Jacobs Studios in Surrey, United Kingdom.
Mastered by Geoff Pesche at Townhouse Studios.
Produced and engineered by Simon Efemey.
Mixed by Simon Efemey and Pete "Pee Wee" Coleman.
Mix Engineer: Pete "Pee Wee" Coleman
Assisted by: Andrew Holdsworth
Keyboards: Andrew Holdsworth
Assistants: Paul Nixon, Sally Butler
Additional Female vocals by Denise Bernard.