It’s funny how you judge a band by its name. I’ve done it all my life. I once bought an album by a band called Blackeyed Susan based on the fact they had a cool moniker (it was pretty good if I recall, but it’s not on Spotify so I can’t check as I don’t have a tape player).
Anyway, back to the point: Paradise Sins. The name conjured up sleaze to me—the kind of band that might’ve opened for Guns N’ Roses around 1989, the kind my mate and I would have been convinced were destined for greatness.
The trouble with assumptions, though, is that they’re usually wrong—and this one was.
Their second album, Desires, would have sounded right at home in the ’80s, sure, but that’s not a knock. Hard rock this colossal has, to my knowledge, never truly gone out of style. Take “Love Like Hell”—it’s as radio-friendly as FM gets, but with a tougher, more youthful edge. “Beautiful Disaster” embraces a similar vibe but distinguishes itself through a twin-guitar attack, with Dan James and Conor Frampton meshing seamlessly alongside Luis Riley Morrison’s commanding vocals.
And that voice? It’s perfect for this kind of music.
The songs on Desires stretch a little longer than typical for the genre. “Slipping Away” is a balladic statement of intent, while the expansive “Second Renaissance” builds superbly, offering a slow burn that highlights drummer Zack Morris’s excellence. Lyrically, it’s also a touch more nuanced than you might expect.
In fact, the EP’s second half hints at intriguing future directions. “Sacrifice,” for example, carries a flavour of latter-day Iron Maiden in its guitar work—not a sentence I ever thought I’d write about a band like this.
It’ll be interesting to see where they go, but the five songs on “Desire” express the desire to be huge. In every sense.
To be honest, this review only needed one word: ambition.
Rating: 8.5/10
REVIEW: PARADISE SINS – DESIRES (2024)
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