STL 123.2: Candlemass cont'd: the Lowe era ("blessed are the children of doom")

 In continuing my singer-centric assessment of Candlemass, I was faced with an interesting procedural choice. Since Johan was the first and is the latest lead singer, I could either move forward to Messiah or backwards to Robert Lowe (not that one). I chose to step back to the trio of albums with Lowe to keep myself from falling into conventional narratives about old bands with new singers. Namely, "bold new direction," "pointless continuation," (similar to "desperate for cash" and "let's play the casino circuit") and "can't really tell the difference" aka "simple repetition."

Robert Lowe, of Solitude Aeturnus, is the kind of “good singer” venerated in certain metal circles--the kind vocal coaches do reaction videos to and say nice things about their technique. I'm pretty sure he is the first non-Scandi member of the band, and coming from the only other 'big' epic doom band I would tend to see him as a hired gun--the kind of singer Leif would have loved to snag for Epicus.

The best of this lot is easily The Grey King (2007). After an acoustic "Prologue," it really starts to burn with "Emporer of the Void." It seems to be a concept album about, well, the king of "the great islands of grey," whoever that would be. The theme is lost power, but there's no power lost in them tasty riffs and compact psuedo-psych solos. Lowe serves as narrator of this suite of first-person songs, and he does have a nice range of expression--not just all balls-out wailing but a range of vocalizations included some tasteful multi-tracking and bitten off, snarled lines, along with soaring melody and sustain. (Since I don't have the technical knowledge or even a vocal coach's reaction to crib off of, that's all just... words, really.)

Even though there's a native English speaker singing, Leif apparently remains the only lyricist. There's something off throughout--maybe going for an updated approach or something? That really shouldn't matter, as metal generally isn't noted for sophisticated word play. But there is one misstep that really annoyed me the first few listens that I never have been able to get over. The final song repeats its title as a refrain: "Embracing the Styx" (sounding a lot like the much earlier "You are bewitched," it so happens.) Evoking the river of death seems on point and the right kind of coloration for doom. Unfortunately, it sounds exactly like "embracing the sticks," which is what I thought it was for the first several listens--an absurdly awkward image. Even after I saw the written song title I thought "you can't embrace a river," though that's kind of the point, as in this final song the king opens his wrists so the blood might mingle with the water. It turns out that this is a strong track, but my early misapprehension continues to mar my appreciation of it.

Next comes Death Magic Doom (2009). This is a little more power-metal than The Grey King and a lot more so than Epicus. There’s a little swagger in it, the barest hint of groove/nu metal (i.e., gruve metal--Lowe even says, “we’re gonna groove” in the opener, “If I Ever Die.”) That non-hit is immediately followed by the tolling of a funeral bell over a slow downtuned, ultra-Sabbathy riff in “The Hammer of Doom,” thus establishing the dominant mode. We see other standby motifs, like the sea monster in "Demon of the Deep." This album ends with a track repeated from a live set. This song, "Lucifer Rising," is actually the Candlemass song I have heard more than any other, because I added it to my 13 Songs for Satan playlist. It praises the dark lord in a Dio-esque Egyptian setting and features the beatitude, "blessed are the children of doom." There is an effect called "simple repetition" that shows that, all else being equal, people like songs they've heard more often better. That was true for a long time with me and this song, but to tell the truth the super-repetition within the song itself has finally gotten to me. It repeats the chorus "Lucifer, Lucifer, Lucifer Rising" (that's the whole chorus) 20 times in a sub-4 minute song. 

By contrast, the first track of Psalms for the Dead (2012), "Prophet," repeats the title 13 times in 6 minutes, and that seems like a lot! This record feels like they're continuing the doom/power-metal balance, though they introduce an element I don’t normally associate with the band at all--humor. 

There's a cheesy 50's horror movie woo-oo-oo effect on "The Sound of Dying Demons," and while the narrative of "Dancing of the Temple of the Mad Queen Bee)" is told in apparent earnestness, I have to imagine there's humorous intent. And while it's not exactly humor, "Killing of the Sun" quotes "Iron Man" while the lyrics of "Siren Song" invokes the "gallows pole" (rhyming it with "the sirens will suck on your soul" which, I think, is humorous(?)). "Siren Song" has some jamming keyboard too.

The last track, "Black as Time," deserves some attention if for no other reason than it was the final Candlemass song from 2012 to 2019.  It starts with a basic ticking clock other an ersatz Monty Python monologue about the duplicitousness of Time--"it does not give a shit... Time is death." After almost two minutes of this, we get back to a fast-paced gallop resolving itself into a bludgeoning "TIME IS BLACK" refrain. Then a short bass solo leads into a long guitar solo before the return of the ooky-spooky 50s horror keyboard effect from "Dying Demons." We go back to the monologue--Time is the master of Doom! for a bit, before going on to the bridge and back, to "TIME IS BLACK--BLACK AS THE SUN--TIME IS BLACK--BLACK AS TIME--BLACK AS TIME" fading under the return of the tick tock. And then it's over--the song, the album, Lowe's run, and, for a while, Candlemass itself. 
The tone of this track reflects the perplexing tone of the record as a whole--it would seem to be funny, but rendered so sincerely you wind up questioning yourself. 

So I wrote this as a chronology, but in the end decided the actual ranking is 

1. The King of the Grey Islands
2. Psalms for the Dead
3. Death Magic Doom

King is the only one I'm likely to listen to again, and the only one to even remotely contend with Epicus. 

Curio: Favorite Singers, Rock Idiom

I scribbled out a list of my favorite "rock" singers quite some time ago, and it has just been sitting around. I don't know what I mean by "rock," except for not Kiri Te Kanawa or Ella Fitzgerald. 

I like their singing better than their music: Sarah McLachlan Ronnie James Dio Paul Rogers Bob Seger Macy Gray 

Their singing makes their music better: Al Green Otis Redding Van Morrison Dusty Springfield Rod Stewart 

"Featured female vocalists": Beth Orton Beth Gibbons Tori Amos Chan Marshall 

Three-in-one: Levon Helm Richard Manuel Rick Danko 

Interesting limitations Tom Waits Bob Dylan 

And then there's Chuck D Frank Sinatra Ella Nina Simone Charlie Rich Emmylou Harris Gillian Welch Kelly Willis Sandy Denny Aretha Franklin Axl Rose Tracy Thorne Marvin Gaye Freddie Mercury 

STL #123.1: Ambassadors of Doom

 If I realized I'd be returning from the dead, so to speak, with post #123, I might have planned something more... sequential. But doom metal goes with the resurrection theme at least. Long story short, I've decided to break my silence with an idea that strikes me as stupid and beautiful--ranking the albums of the Swedish epic doom band Candlemass by singer. While I do find this a beautifully stupid idea, I'm having trouble explaining the appeal. I hope I'll figure it along the way, so by the time you get to the end of this I will figure out what I actually have to say.

123.1 If you want a history of Candlemass, go to Wikipedia and then Encylopedia Metallum. There, you'll learn Johan Langquist was the first singer for the band (with Epicus Doomicus Metallicus in 1986) and has returned to become the latest (with Door to Doom in 2019).  This is kind of like Paul Dianno coming back to front Iron Maiden after all these year, provided that the first Maiden albums had been stone classics which Number of the Beast, Piece of Mind and the rest just didn't live up to. 

Pitting these two against each other is not a fair fight. Epicus is unassailable. That first album is a genre-establishing classic. There were a few bands who based their sound on Black Sabbath already, but the great innovation of bassist and mastermind Lars Edling was to cross seventies Sabbath with eighties Sabbath. (That sounds like a bullshit statement to me. I'm not sure if it's supportable or even what it means.) Lars couldn't find the singer who had the sound for his vision (apparently he is a singer himself, of too limited range). Johan was hired as a guest musician and given a few weeks to learn the songs. (Is there another album in metal, or rock or pop for that matter, which lists both the lead singer and lead guitarist as guests? Makes you wonder what "lead" means!) Compared to his replacements (we will get them later, of course), Johan does have some technical limitations, and his voice is awash with echoes and layering in Epicus. He's not at all bad, and I think the record would have been just fine if they'd just let him sing. Instead (and like Dianno, mentioned above), he is limited singer asked to sing in an opera (Also like Dianno, he was replaced by a succession of more technically proficient singers.)

There are many bands who never live up to their first album, but Candlemass never lived up to their first song, "Solitude." The initial vocal line is doubled and echoed, but Johan imbues real sense of desperation and death-love into the suicidal lyrics. The “Earth to earth” bridge gets me every time, the riff, oh my dark lord the riff, by long-time member Mappe Bjorkman, is one of the heaviest in existence.  In “Demon’s Gate” the initial cheesy vocal effects (and lyrics: the distorted demon vocals say Beyond all nightmares I met my fate/an ancient passage surrounded by hate") and the heavy synth are forgiven once you get to the riff and those blasting, jackhammer drums. The song includes the first explicit use of the word "doom": "The place is cursed by the hands of doom." A little later on, it tries a little bass and drums break before one of the many pick-slides on the album and before it ends, the Arabic textures return in a guitar solo and so do the distorted demon vox end. The next song, “Crysal Ball” doubles down on the cheesy lyrics, with the couplet "Gaze into the crystal, see what it tells/It can bring you all fortune, do you so well."  Leif is, I believe, responsible for all Candlemass lyrics, and they often sound like they were written by a Swedish teen pulling Cs in English who's obsessed with the Monster Manual.  (I assume this was the case.) The lyrics tend to be a mishmash of a light variety of Satanism and mythology (the river Styx shows up alot). They mostly just set the mood for doom, but sometimes stumble into something interesting. “Black Stone Wielder” invents, I guess, a dark figure with a black stone that functions as the opposite of the Star of Bethlehem. I guess. As long as lyricist Lars can avoid embarrassment, populate the songs with wizards and devils, and occasionally throw in a cool sounding line like “The Devil gives and evil takes,” he is doing his job.

As a head-to-head matchup, Door hasn’t a chance. It’s a good record though. Johann’s vocals are controlled throughout this album. I lack the technical knowledge to be any more specific, but his singing seems held in. He doesn’t reach too far and so he doesn’t fall on his face--like the more subdued aspects of Ian Gillian.  Although it reunites three members from the debut (Langquist, Eiflung, and rhythm guitarist Mappe Bjorkman), Candlemass has updated their sound over the years--the galloping rhythm and choir vocals in “Splendor Demon Majesty” suggest the influence of power metal, as does the clanky anvil percussion in the second track, “Under the Ocean.”  But as far as doomy maneuvers go, getting Tony Iommi to do a guest solo is about as good as you can do. That solo, on the crushing “Astorolus,” starts underwater and emerges like a giant octopus from underwater, pulling sailors from the decks of their ships.  

Songs in the back half continue the updated “doom but new” sound.  “Death Wheel” has a nice bridge and lovely, two part guitar solo that ends with a fuzz second part accompanied by-- flute?  “Black Trinity” carries on in the tradition of ‘devil shit is so cool’ shared by “Splendor Demo Majesty” and, you'd be forgiven for thinking, most Candlemass songs. The evil trinity is referred to as  “the ambassadors of doom,” which just about explains the continuing existence of this band. The purpose of Candlemass is to doom. Not only are they the self-appointed “ambassadors of doom,” but they live in “The House of Doom” (the title of the penultimate track, which presumably has the Door to Doom on the front--painted black) and belong to the “club of doom” (in the the finale, “The Omega Circle.”) By the end of this album, I feel like I’ve had enough, and in fact, apart from “Under the Ocean” and “Astorolus,” I’m unlikely to listen to this album much again.

Next time, I'll step back one singer (or forward four) and consider the three albums with Robert Lowe.