May ended with a pretty slow release week, so we decide to do an entire episode of Sh!t We Missed! And while all three of your fearless leaders picked the albums to review, Mr. R.Jock was not able to join us this week, leaving Brian and Nick hold the line. Kyle’s absence also leads to a much calmer show because he was not there to start fights. It was pretty nice actually…maybe we won’t bring him back…… Oh, yeah, so anyway…also included in this episode is the sorely missed Freak of the Week segment, which we used to fill in the some of the gore and violence usually included via Death Metal albums (of which there are none this week).
Reviews: Atoma – Skylight; The Burial – Lights and Perfections; Ever Forthright – Ever Forthright; Paradise Lost – Tragic Idol; Unsane – Wreck
The Sideshow Podcast 
One thing I like about the shit you missed segment is that there is a chance that I will have listened to an album before I hear your reviews of it. Usually I listen to your podcast before I buy stuff, and even in the cases where I bought an album before you review it, I may have only heard it once or twice before I hear your review and it may not have sunk in or I haven’t necessarily formed an opinion of it yet.
So this week’s review of Tragic Idol is the exception where I have actually listened to an album before hearing your review. I’m in the same boat as you guys are when it comes to Paradise Lost. Even though they’ve been around forever, I had never listened to any of their music before so Tragic Idol is the first album of theirs that I’ve heard.
As a side note, I don’t necessarily feel the need to listen to a band’s entire back catalog before getting an album. Sure, there are times when I think that if a veteran act that I haven’t heard before puts out a new album, then I might be better off spending my time listening to one of their other albums that has already stood the test of time. But with the case of Paradise Lost there is just too much to try to listen to so I gave Tragic Idol a try.
Maybe the coverage and high praise from Decibel led me to expect more from Tragic Idol, but ultimately Tragic Idol is only ok. Paradise Lost’s brand of “not quite doom metal” makes for a few very good tracks, but after while all of the 4 to 5 minute mid-tempo tracks tend to mostly be non-descript. There is nothing bad about it by any means, but it’s just that for me right now there are a number of albums that I’m listening to that are impressing the hell out of me and expanding my understanding of what modern metal can be (Allegaeon, Alcest, Cattle Decap). But Tragic Idol is not one of those albums.