Sweet.

Awesome news.

Will rule

Really curious which direction they'll take, Medusa was awesome.

Nice, I hope the band keeps the vibe from the previous album.

Always thought these guys were incredibly overrated

Same producer as TPW and Medusa eh, I'm not super hyped honestly.

"Always thought these guys were incredibly overrated"
Influence aside I can see it, from what they gave us they are neither exceptional musicians nor songwriters. However if you vibe with their idea of emotions they can be very satisfying.

bloc you ever checked their Host album? It's basically Depeche Mode.

TPW was such a great surprise. But Medusa didn't do much for me.

Really curious which direction they'll take, Medusa was awesome. (2)

I hope it’s a little more diverse than Medusa. I’m a big fan of the ‘Symbol Of Life’ through ‘Tragic Idol’ era.

"bloc you ever checked their Host album? It's basically Depeche Mode."

I gave it a 3. Only thing higher was the self titled at 3.5, which doesn't seem to get much love anyway haha

If you like the self titled, I'm surprised you don't like Symbol of Life since the self-titled was basically a clone of that album.

Symbol of Life is my favorite Paradise Lost album. I agree with Willie, love the Symbol of Life through Tragic Idol era.

I wasn't feelin that one either

Icon is one of my fav albums ever. Haven't actually listened to anything they put out after like 2008

Medusa was good but I do hope they go a bit further into Draconian Times direction. No one does that shit like them.

"I gave it a 3. Only thing higher was the self titled at 3.5, which doesn't seem to get much love anyway haha"

I don't love the s/t because of how rigid and formulaic the writing is, yuo could say it's sadboi pop metal. Then again that's also its strength, catchiness and emotionz. Sun Fading is one of my favorite PL songs actually.
As for Host, I really dig quite a few songs. In All Honesty, Behind the Grey, Wreck and Deep mainly.

Has anyone heard the remastered versions of One Second, Host, and especially Believe In Nothing. They're well worth getting (either on their own or to replace your original copies).

Yes, I own all of those on CD! They sound great.

I bought the lossless digital versions. I don't really buy discs anymore (For music, games, or movies).

must... refrain... from... talking... badly... of... CD... mastering... again...

LPs are great though especially considering Host and BiN never had a decent sounding edition before. I'm not a big fan of BiN's remix though but that's subjective.

--must... refrain... from... talking... badly... of... CD... mastering... again...--

Enlighten me because I'm slowly updating all my music to lossless, and it's cheapest to buy used CDs from Amazon and rip them than to buy digital versions outright, but if there is a significant enough difference....

CDs from the 90s onwards are tipycally a lot more compressed than vinyl. This doesn't mean that vinyl is a better format, it just happens that they make brickwalled CDs and (more or less) dynamic vinyl because LPs have the "audiophile myth" that protects them from aggressive compression. Sadly, even a lot of digital downloads are the same as CDs (not to mention that bad vinyl definitely exists), so tough luck for anyone without a turntable (if you want to avoid piracy that is). I personally own a turntable that let's me rip the music to PC via USB.

One thing you can do is look at this website where people upload the dynamic range of the various editions of albums: http://dr.loudness-war.info/album/list?artist=paradise+lost&album=host
Have you ever seen users like KILL talk about DR? That's what they mean. As you can see from that link, Host has an average dynamic range of 8 (out of 20) both in 1999 (CD) and 2018 (download, 100% surely CD too), sadly. However, the remastered vinyl definitely sounds better than a DR8! Though we can't know with precise numbers, because the tools to measure DR are apparently not trustworthy on vinyl rips.

Keep in mind I'm not an expert by any means. I'm just a dude with a pair of decent headphones that just can't avoid to notice how ass most music is mastered today just because people feel like compression (which brings higher volume) attracts more costumers. Remember when I criticized Traced in Air remix saying that it was badly mastered on Spotify/CD? That album is DR7, even lower than Host. Once you start developing an ear for this stuff you basically start to hate a lot of things and become grumpy like me.

I don't have a record player though. It's a real pain to work out which one to buy and which amp to use and how often the needle needs replacing and AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH

I'd rather spend two grand on good headphones and listen to the flac stuff I buy from bandcamp

I do a lot of Bandcamp purchases and 7Digital stuff. Then used CDs when I need to. I spent $400 on some planar magnetic Audeze headphones and they're so damn good.

Most CD and digital downloads feel compressed, there are exceptions though..

Indeed, vinyl is inconvenient and in this digital age there is no need for it to exist. Yet, that's where the labels often press the best versions of their albums. The music industry makes zero sense today quality-wise and I stopped criticizing pirates since the industry is a scam to begin with.

You see, you could buy a super duper 24bit/192khz digital file, but if the mastering is bad then the file has the same value as a throwaway 320k mp3. I love Bandcamp, because it let's you download your format of choice, but in the end it all comes down to the master they are selling you. You could even buy a vinyl, but then if you only listen to the download you are often basically listening to the CD, because what you download is the same as what you stream on the site and it's rare (but not impossible) that they'd put the more dynamic version for streaming.

Speaking of Paradise Lost, just listen to Shades of God on CD, crank up the volume and feel what it means to have good DR13 mastering. You don't even need to dig the music, it's just clear as day how dynamic the sound is.
By the way, if any of you has bought Draconian Times' legacy edition, you can rip the surround DVD on your PC and downmix to stereo to have a sweet good sounding Draco. Otherwise you'd have to hunt for a super expensive vinyl!
(admittedly Draconian Times is DR9 on CD so it's not *that* catastrophic)

Yeah, there's always some risk. The only thing I can do is try to get the best sounding versions whenever possible. Just recently bought the wide dynamic range version of Carcass' Heartwork album lossless through Bandcamp... such a huge difference.

Headphones have a part to play as well... Apple standard headphones for instance, are uncanny in making “shit” sound like “gold”.

I have some planar magnetic headphones which are uncanny for exposing any and all recording flaws. ha ha. But when the music is recorded well, it's fucking magical.

I use Audio Technica Pro ATH-M50X, they cost "only" €180 but are widely used even by musicians themselves for their value. They are monitor headphones, meaning they don't interfere with weird equalizations and let you hear a nice, neutral reflection of the original music file.

I really suggest you guys to keep an eye on 5.1 DVDs. A lot of the time they are rather cheap bundled with the CDs and you can easily downmix them to stereo. For instance, I never listen to the compressed CD of Katatonia's The Fall of Hearts, because the DVD that came together is by far the best sounding version of the album. Very quiet and polished.
Same for Opeth! Many of their albums received DVD bundles from Still Life to Heritage (it gets tricky after that) and they are total improvements, not to mention cheaper than vinyl (and sometimes better too, see Watershed or Blackwater Park).

What do you use to downmix?

DVD Audio Extractor to rip the complete multi-channel audio to FLAC, then foobar2000 with the Channel Mixer plug-in to downmix it to 2 channels.
Extracting full 4+ channel files and *then* downmixing it ensures a much better result in my experience, rather than directly ripping it to 2. It's really a world of trial and error haha, especially at first, not to mention some DVDs come with multiple mixes.

DVD Audio Extractor sadly isn't free, but it's so reliable and intuitive. HandBrake is a free alternative but sometimes it fails to read my stuff and I don't know why, both folders and actual physical DVDs.

I use Handbrake for ripping movies because I keep everything digital. I've never tried to use it for just audio.

I don't think it's meant for just audio, yeah. I may be wrong but I don't think you can disable the video and I also don't think it has FLAC as an option. I used it years ago a few times but it was hell on earth.

It definitely doesn't have a Flac option now that I think about it. It seems to max out at 640. It's perfect for movies, though. Use MakeMKV to get a lossless extraction of the DVD/BluRay, then Handbrake to compress to your specifications.

Pfft FLAC...biggest storage scam of the 21st century

You're right. I actually rip all my stuff to ALAC. ;)

Tf is this conversation and how did it start in a paradise lost news thread

It would take you 30 seconds of reading to get a better answer than any of us can provide.

Gotta get that comment count up bro

Technical convos like this are rare is all...I read egg man. Plus gotta get that comment count up.