Santa, Laughing, Spreads His Wings

Paradise Lost guitarist Gregor Mackintosh on the tricky task of combining miserablist metal with Yuletide cheer

- GREGORY ADAMS

IF PARADISE LOST guitarist Gregor Mackintosh gets his wish, music fans might be adding the gloom-driven sounds of his band's Ascension LP to their Christmas playlists this year, perhaps alongside Yuletide staples like Michael Bublé and Bing Crosby. The throughline might not be readily apparent between those crooners and the U.K. metal veterans; few holly-jolly moments exist across the latter's new album, where vocalist Nick Holmes uses death-growls and a gothic baritone to explore themes of war and the interminable struggle of life.

Nevertheless, Mackintosh suggests the melancholic melody lines he brings to Ascension pieces like “Salvation” and “Serpent on the Cross” chime through the speakers like a peal of church bells on a crisp December morning, which he argues makes the quintet's 17th full-length “a Christmassy, winter-type thing.”

“It all started with the song ‘Salvation,’ which is a full-on Christmas song to me — but, you know, like an alternative, miserable Christmas," he says through a laugh, noting how he was inspired to up the seasonal ante, production-wise, by juxtaposing jingling percussion against his sorrowful riffage.

“When I did that song I thought, ‘I wonder if I can get away with putting sleigh bells on a doom-metal song?’ I put them all through the chorus in the demos and no one batted an eyelid. So, I thought, ‘Right... I'm going to use it on two or three more songs!”

Despite Ascension's inherently chilly aesthetic, Mackintosh is explaining all this to