Nick Holmes (singer)

Nick Holmes
Nick Holmes, 2007
Background information
Birth name Nicholas John Arthur Holmes
Born (1971-01-07) 7 January 1971
Origin United Kingdom
Genres Gothic metal, doom metal, death metal, death-doom, gothic rock, synthpop
Occupation(s) Musician, singer
Years active 1988-present
Labels Century Media Records
Associated acts Paradise Lost, Bloodbath

Nicholas John Arthur Holmes (born 7 January 1971) is a musician from Halifax, West Yorkshire, best known as the frontman of British gothic metal/doom metal band Paradise Lost[1] and Swedish death metal band Bloodbath.[2]

History and style

Holmes formed Paradise Lost in late 1988 when he and the other band members were barely out of secondary school.

Like other contemporaries of the British Death/doom metal scene (Anathema and My Dying Bride), the band began purely as death metal, with Holmes using a low, guttural death grunt on their early demos and Lost Paradise (1990), Gothic (1991), and Shades of God (1992) full-lengths (though the latter two albums were not exclusively death metal in execution and Nick even utilized some clean vocals as well). Beginning with 1993's Icon, the death grunts were discarded entirely in favour of a raw but decipherable James Hetfield-like bellow. When the band yet again transitioned stylistically with 1997's One Second, Nick's vocals took on a more gothic rock croon, which remained his prevalent style for the next several albums that followed. However, with 2015's The Plague Within, the band reincorporated low growls in some songs.

In September 2014, it was officially announced that Holmes had replaced Mikael Åkerfeldt as the vocalist in the Swedish death metal band Bloodbath. Here, Nick uses his death grunt style exclusively, although it is noticeably different-sounding from the way it did on early Paradise Lost material, where his vocals were very low and guttural, but now resembles a desiccated croak.

As is the case with a number of other veteran death metal vocalists from the genre's formative period, this change in delivery is perhaps due to overuse and age, as vocal chords tend to weaken over time and become strained, forcing some to adopt a less intense/guttural execution.

Finnish singer of the band Amorphis, Tomi Joutsen, has been partially compared to Holmes.[3]

Discography

  • Liv Kristine - Deus Ex Machina (1998, Swanlake, guest vocals)
  • Bloodbath - Grand Morbid Funeral (2014, Peaceville Records)
  • Trees of Eternity - Hour of the Nightingale (2016, Svart Records, guest vocals)
  • Bloodbath - The Arrow of Satan is Drawn (2018, Peaceville Records)

Filmography

  • "666 - At Calling Death" (1993, documentary, directed: Matt Vain)
  • "Over the Madness" (2007, documentary, directed: Diran Noubar)

References

  1. ↑ Jason Ankeny. "Paradise Lost - Biography - AllMusic". AllMusic. Retrieved 23 August 2015.
  2. ↑ "Bloodbath Recruits Paradise Lost's Nick Holmes As Its New Singer - Blabbermouth.net". BLABBERMOUTH.NET. Retrieved 23 August 2015.
  3. ↑ "Artists :: Tomi Joutsen" (in French). Metalweb. Retrieved 23 July 2012.
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