Paradise Lost, the genre-defining British doom metal band, are reissuing their seminal 1992 album Shades Of God on 12" picture disc through Music For Nations on July 22nd.

Frontman Nick Holmes comments, "We recorded Shades Of God in a remote farmhouse near Kettering. It was our first album with Music For Nations and producer Simon Efemy and probably the most memorable recording session we have ever done. For the first three weeks, we had no TV to watch, the Internet of course didn't exist so we had to entertain ourselves with Ouija boards, ghost stories and playing tricks on each other for amusement.

"Musically, I think it's one of our heaviest albums and very different to Gothic, heading in a more doomy direction, really riff orientated with a vocal style that would eventually lead to Icon."

The album, a follow up to 1990's Gothic album, is seen as the moment where Paradise Lost moved towards a more doom-centric sound, while still encompassing a wide range of other musical genres, showing off the band's creativity and inventiveness in forging their own distinct take on doom metal, a style that would be continued on 1993's Icon.

The album also saw the band's initial transition away from using traditional death metal growls by blending them in with clean vocals, and quieter passages at times throughout the record.

Alongside the likes of Katatonia and My Dying Bride, Paradise Lost were one of a number of bands in the 1990s who took their initial doom/death-metal style and gradually moved towards a more melodic, goth-metal sound, with Shades Of God being one of the most important steps in this evolution for the band.

Since their formation in 1988, Paradise Lost have been consistent pioneers in the doom metal genre. Maintaining a key lineup of founding members Nick Holmes (vocals), Greg Mackintosh (lead guitar, keyboards), Aaron Aedy (rhythm guitar) and Steve Edmonson (bass guitar), the band released its fourteenth and most recent album The Plague Within last year.

Pre-order here.