Warthur Paradise Lost began as pioneers of a distinctive death-doom sound before they went on a long, gradual journey, shifting through gothic metal to increasingly less extreme metal-oriented styles until on Host they exited the metal world altogether, producing an album of synth-oriented gothic rock.

Believe In Nothing begins their long trek back to their roots. Ultimately, I think Paradise Lost's journey away from and then back towards the gothic-doom metal blend which is their main forte was a good thing: by undertaking that trip, they were able to return to extreme metal having stretched their wings a bit and learned a few lessons they wouldn't have if they'd stayed in their comfort zone, and were stronger for it.

That said, the journey itself is a little rough to listen to. Host was good but not great, and anyone who's into synth-heavy goth music has probably heard better. The return of heavy guitars and metal stylings on Believe In Nothing is in that respect a welcome reprieve, though it has to be said that their sound ends up feeling a little generic here - there's a few too many moments where they sound like commercial pretenders to the throne, rather than the mighty unit which gave us albums like Draconian Times.

Still, the album does do some interesting things, exploring how the synths of Host and current alternative rock trends could work their way into a sound suggestive of Paradise Lost's glory days without quite arriving there. If Believe In Nothing doesn't sound like top tier Paradise Lost, it at least sounds like a pretty decent support band warming up the crowd before Paradise Lost themselves take to the stage - and in its grander moments, you can get a good whiff of the real deal.

If you are into gothic metal to any particular extent, that probably sounds good to you, and it sounds alright to me - except it can be very hard to get over the fact that it's Paradise Lost themselves doing this, and you know they're capable of more.

UMUR "Believe in Nothing" is the 8th full-length studio album by UK goth metal act Paradise Lost. The album was released in February 2001 by EMI.

After the electronic experiments on "Host (1999)", the band opted to return to a heavier and more guitar driven sound again on "Believe in Nothing". Probably to the great relief of most of their fans. "Host" didn´t exactly go down well with the more "metal" oriented part of the band´s fans but personally I kind of enjoyed the rather Depeche Mode sounding album. When you listen closely to "Believe in Nothing" it´s actually not that different from "Host" though. At least not when we´re talking vocal melodies and structure of the songs. It´s the instrumentation and especially the added distortion on the guitars that makes the difference.

"Believe in Nothing" is a well produced, well played and as such well composed affair, but the songs sound too much the same IMO. I think it´s a problem that I´m still, after 10 years, not able to remember the tracks on the album. It´s funny because I can listen to the album and hum along to most the tracks while the album is playing, but as soon as the album is finished playing, I can´t, for the life of me, remember any of the songs. So while the album isn´t exactly weak or bad in any way, it´s a very mediocre effort by Paradise Lost and it´s probably the last album by the band that I would recommend getting. Hell I even like "Host" more than this one. At least that one was daring and adventurous. "Believe in Nothing" is predictable and way too safe. A 2.5 star rating is warranted and I might even be a bit too nice here.