Nick Holmes (born 7th January, 1971) formed Paradise Lost in late 1988 when he and the other bandmembers were barely out of secondary school. Like contemporaries Anathema and My Dying Bride, the band began purely as Death Metal, with Holmes utilising a low, guttural "death grunt" on the band's demos and the "Lost Paradise" (1991), "Gothic" and "Shades Of God" (1992) albums. On their later albums, his vocals were more inclined to a raw but deciperable bellow, as heard on "Icon" (1993) and "Draconian Times" (1995) with a 'goth rock croon' soon accompanying the band's more recent electronic musical direction, beginning with 1997's "One Second". Along with Guitarist Gregor Mackintosh, he is the band's primary songwriter.