From the 13th Sun

"From the 13th Sun" picks up almost immediately where "Dactylis" left off, with the only change in lineup being Michael Amott leaving and being replaced by Mats Stahl. In fact, the band essentially doubles down on what they started for this release. For sure, Candlemass seems more focused on what they were doing for "13th Sun" than they were for "Dactylis." The result of that is an album that seems less random. However, unfortunately for them, the lack of variety and pin-pointing on one style makes this album even less enjoyable than the one that came before, because what they focused on was the worst aspects of the one that came before it. When you abandon what you're good at doing, even if you focus all of your efforts on something else, it won't lead to much if you're not exactly good at what it is you're focusing on.

To get the ball rolling on what you should expect when you listen to this album, just look at the track titles. Candlemass tries to name their songs after a plethora of techno babble as if to prep you for how 'out of this world' this album is. Looking at the track listing seems more like reading the script of a sci-fi B movie rather than a metal album. It really is something of an accomplishment for them to have tried so hard to make a memorable album with experimental music and sci-fi track names, yet it remains the most unmemorable and unremarkable album of their discography. The music on this record is as boring and half-assed as the album cover for it is. Bjorn Flodkvist has abandoned the gruff style of vocals he mixed in on "Dactylis," and now sings almost the entire album in his nasally whiny tone. This is probably the biggest kiss of death for the album. I do not understand why. On the last album, he showed that he was a pretty versatile singer, yet on this one, he almost seems to intentionally be a one trick pony. But the one trick he's doing is the worst trick he knows.

On "Arx/NG 891," the song's core riff gives it a pretty decent pounding feel until he whines and cries like a child over the top of it. If that wasn't enough, the track goes on for 6 minutes, and really doesn't have the material to justify it. This track feels like the band scrapped together an unfinished song. Like they had one okay idea and just tried to mold things around it to lengthen it instead of sticking it back in the oven to grow more. "Cyclo F" might even be worse than that. Without a doubt, this song is where Bjorn's vocals are their absolute worst. He sounds absolutely tone deaf. I'm amazed he was allowed to leave the studio after that kind of performance. Shortly into the song, a random drum solo gets thrown at you, which only leaves me scratching my head. It is a very standard, by the book rock drum solo. It's not like an atmospheric percussion section that's supposed to set a tone or pace. Its just...your basic drum solo randomly smashed in there 3 minutes into the song before the core track comes back just as randomly as it left, only to just loop one part for the remaining 5 minutes. There is nothing tasty or artistically done about "Cyclo F." It is as random and nonsensical as it gets.

"Blumma Apt" is probably the biggest heart-breaker on the record. The song's intro gets your hopes up. The intro riff has a somber, chilling mood that really seems like its setting the table for something good. And then it takes a back seat for Bjorn's whining. The track then just crawls across the floor, searching desperately for a place to go to no avail. A little after the halfway point, there's a decent little tempo change that gets the blood pumping a bit, but the little shift is too fleeting for to sink your teeth into before you're back to square one, and left entirely disappointed. "Tot" is just about as boring as a song can ever be, too. After some atmospheric raining, we get met by some marching drums and a riff that sounds like it was recycled off "Dactylis." Much like "Apathy" on that album, this one features your very stereotypical vocal distortions to feel spacey. The song 'picks up' with an insanely stock riff that an amateur could come up with in high school before you rinse and repeat the dull nonsense. This song has the quality of that local opener you've seen at your favorite dive. Not Candlemass.

The opener "Droid" is the only thing that even remotely saves this record. This song is the reason this album is getting the rating it is and not lower. The main riff of the track is quite powerful and aggressive, and the main drum beat really drives the song and carries it. The snare pattern really makes "Droid" move by giving the listener a simple but effective pattern to count on and follow along with. Best of all, they didn't try to turn this song into some lengthy masterpiece. It tells the musical story it needs to tell with some enjoyable playing and then fades away. "Droid" is the only song across this entire record that I feel like a modest amount of effort went into crafting. Everything else seems like an experimental jam. Is it a highlight of Candlemass' discography? No. But when you only get one good track on an entire album, you can't help but heap praise on it.

"From the 13th Sun" winds up being the very definition of an album that needed more time in the oven. Every single track on this album has a scattered riff or idea here or there that shows some promise, but ends up being bloated or muddied. For every semi decent idea on this album, there's five more that are bland and uninspired to cover it up. If Leif had planned on really going full on in this direction, he needed a lot more time to craft and hone in on the good qualities of the record to build it more. Luckily for me, this era of Candlemass went to sleep as quickly as it had appeared, and when it woke up again, things would be back to normal.

When I think of Candlemass, my mind doesn't jump automatically to this album. It sounds atypical for the revered doomsters and in fact gives their general aesthetic an entire 180 spin that makes me reel a little. However, there is every reason to argue that 'From the 13th Sun' should not be considered as a true Candlemass album: firstly, the only member of the band that many will recognise is the mastermind and bass player Leif Edling; secondly, the vast, towering riffs and stratospheric vocals are traded in for spacey, stoned jams; thirdly, the whole presentation of the album is a far cry from the usual style, with even the band's distinctive logo absent. That said, on its own merits, 'From the 13th Sun' actually has a little less to stand on than if we consider it a surprise divergence from Candlemass's previous path.

The first thing that will hit you about this is that we are on a trip through outer space. 'Nightfall' and 'Tales of Creation' had dealt with death and the heavens with ample scope, but this is a haunting crawl through the recesses of the galaxy, with its own atmosphere of drifting helplessly as space debris passes by. There are absolutely zero histrionics or attempts to reach a higher plane of understanding, the music cut back to its primal parts, including the subtraction of solos, melodies, and dramatic vocals for the majority of the album. There is even some feedback and electronic effects on songs like 'Blumma Apt' and 'Arx/Ng 891', which would have been unthinkable with the original lineup. Songs develop through repetition and variation, usually maintaining a groove or motif for their entire length and simply dropping the guitars or changing pace to signify the beginning or ending of a section. As such, there is very little technicality left in the playing and the music is left to be judged on catchiness, atmosphere, and its pure heaviness.

For heaviness, 'From the 13th Sun' is undeniably a success. The guitar tone and bass tone are both absolutely immense, creating a massively wide and in fact spreading boom that feels like meteor impacts or the unhaltable progress of cosmic objects. If the riffs are simple, this at least gives the band something to get behind and put everything into, because this sounds more thoroughly doomed than the band's early shining heraldry, with a bleaker outlook and more destructive tendencies. The drums must by necessity hide behind that tone a little, though they don't exactly cower, battering more sportively than usual and contributing to both the immense heaviness and the lonely drifting parts with equal skill. As for the vocals, Björn Flodkvist suits this style so much better than Messiah would have done, yet - as has been mentioned in the other reviews - he sounds merely standard, doing nothing exciting or atmospheric, in fact playing his role like another rhythm instrument aiming only to cling to his band like the final frontier of humanity.

While these changes all sound fairly good on the surface, the place where they begin to show shortcomings is in the limited range of options they leave for songwriting. Because the riffs are usually simple, slow, and narcotically repetitive, they can't give a song a very specific character; because there are few solos or lead roles (a guitar solo on 'Arx/Ng 891', a bass solo on 'Zog', and a drum solo on 'Cyclo-F'), the music stays at a constant level for a long time and doesn't have much detail; because of the passive singer, there are almost no vocal hooks to keep the songs in your mind. The album thus achieves its intention of sounding like a cold and lonely drift through deserted space, but that experience - however atmospheric it might be - wouldn't be memorable, and nor is this album. There are some change-ups, like the quiet and fragile verses of 'Tot' and 'Galatea', which sound gorgeous when contrasted to the surrounding heaviness, except they don't change the rhythm or the mood of the music and so don't quite have the effect they need - that of making the album more interesting. I listen to 'Droid' and 'Arx/Ng 891' with most interest, since the former has the best groove of the album and an almost nostalgic chorus, while the latter injects a basic melody and a fitting guitar solo into the flattening riffs, which makes it more palatable, if not actually better, than the other offerings.

I understand perfectly why Candlemass decided to make this album and why it turned out as it did. It's a great idea to make a doom album about the futility and epic scale of outer space, even though the execution of that concept turns out to prove that it's probably quite a boring thing to do. The atmosphere is consistent, the grooves are huge, if unspectacular, and there's an ongoing dynamic to the journey that may satisfy some, especially those with a partiality for stoner riffing and contemplative, unobtrusive music. For me, however, this doesn't quite cut it.

While I enjoy pretty much all Candlemass, there's something about this record that gets my dick harder, my neck sorer than all the others. The absence of knobhead Marcolin? The tendency towards spacier soundscapes? The bigger riffs? The drugged, hopeless dark atmosphere of the whole thing? The fresh way it constantly references Sabbath without being shit/derivative? Well, it's not hard to rationalise my love for the album.

The absence of Marcolin's probably the biggest plus, personally. Always tended to view him as a self important ass-bandit which is reflected in his vocal delivery; and while I normally loathe Ozzy impersonators Bjorn's really solid and deliver in pretty much every song, Cyclo-F being a bit of a cringe inducing exception. Droid's full of great vocal lines, and the quiet, haunting delivery of Tot (probably my favourite song here) brilliantly fits the uncharacteristically quiet, sombre verses. The dude doesn't blow my mind and isn't technically awesome but he gets the job done in every single song and never sounds out of place, never does crap songs about Samaritans or Seven Silver Keys, so on. So it's less "he's great" and more "he never sounds like shit"? Well, yeah. Dude is consistently solid...

...Which is good because the way I've always viewed Candlemass and most doom in general is that you're generally ignoring the vocals for the huge ass riffs and vast, crushing atmosphere, and here that's delivered with aplomb. The whole thing's far closer to Sabbath (might be the vocalist) than most Candlemass is, although it's still a good deal darker and more visceral than the forefathers' work. Obvious Electric Funeral influence in almost every riff; not a bad thing! Things do a get a bit close to plagarism with Elephant Star's "hey guys we think Symptoms of the Universe has a cool main riff", but no big deal; if you're gonna rip off a riff you might as well make it a really good one. So many good riffs and guitar work here in general; Droid's catchy as hell main riff, the lost-in-space drift of Tot, the slow crusher that's Galatea. Far moreso than ever before the band is content to take things down to very deep, quiet tones- I think they're really good at it. Arguably a bit simpler and more stripped back than most Candlemass, but still, quality.

The whole thing just sounds really natural and un-forced; it sounds like what Candlemass wanted to do at the time. Even the drum solo in Cyclo-F fits?! Plus, the new (well, I assume it's new, I haven't heard Dactylis) found infusion of spacey synth times, the occaisonal tendency to drift among the stars on seas of delay just fits so naturally, so well into their sound. I really dig the way Candlemass approached the increased spaciness; it's not always subtle (Droid) but everytime it's really noticeable it's to the obvious improvement of the song. It's one of those experiments where you really have to wonder why they didn't follow up on it? Because it works and it works damn well, this pitch black atmosphere full of the primal emptiness of outer space.

Overall it's just a really good album. Easy to lose yourself in. As good if not better than most of their works with Marcolin and Lowe; deserves listening to and buying if you're not a cheap bastard.

While Candlemass may always be remembered for housing vocalists such as Messiah Marcolin and Robert Lowe in their ranks, they were one of many bands that kept pushing through the 90's and giving the die-hards left some good quality material. This particular album is one of the three released during this time period and is the last to feature guitarist Mats Ståhl, drummer Jejo Perkovic, and vocalist Björn Flodkvist. It's also the only Candlemass album to feature a keyboardist in the form of Carl Westholm and was what paved the way for a reunion of the band's signature line-up.

Musically, this album features the band's familiar tempos and but focuses on a different aspect of doom metal than what the group is usually known for. The atmosphere is incredibly dark, the riffs are incredibly slow and packed with sludge, and there appears to be more of a "jamming" feel on here in comparison to other Candlemass efforts. There is also an incredibly spacy feel to the album with this tone being reinforced by the spooky keyboard efforts and strange song titles.

As many listeners (and the booklet's liner notes) have pointed out, Black Sabbath is the most dominating influence on this album's songwriting and band performance. "Tot" has a foreboding feel similar to that of "Black Sabbath," the driving "Elephant Star" is similar to "Symptom Of The Universe," and "Arx/NG 891" has some shades of "Electric Funeral" in its atmosphere. While this could have turned out horribly and shamefully derivative in the hands of a lesser band, Candlemass executes its tributes in good taste and adds in a lot of unique elements to keep things interesting.

The band's performance is also quite solid and goes along with the album's loose nature quite nicely. When taking the Sabbath influence into consideration, it is needless to say that the guitars are almost always running the show. While the riffs sometimes lack variation, they are always solid in their plodding nature and the solos provide some decent touches here and there. Flodkvist also puts in a decent Ozzy Osbourne impression though his somewhat nasally tone keeps him short of the Wino levels of success. I also like how the drums appear to be more prominent than usual and are given a nice chance to shine in the midst of "Cyclo-F."

I also found the lyrics to be pretty intriguing with most of them being about as odd as their titles would suggest. Most of the songs seem to center around themes related to fantasy and science fiction though "Cyclo-F" throws out an incredibly sarcastic set of rhymes that seem to play off the classic doom metal stereotypes. They even manage to bring in a William Blake reference for the opening lines of "Arx/NG 891."

While this isn't on the same level as some of their more famous efforts, this is a pretty solid slab of doom metal worth checking out for anyone who calls themselves a fan. It may actually be a good introduction to the band for unfamiliar listeners that already enjoy classic Black Sabbath and should be a great bonus for those that have already been initiated.

My Current Favorites:
"Droid," "Tot," "Elephant Star," "Arx/NG 891," and "Cyclo-F"

Many fans of the classic Messiah era will be deeply disappointed. The only surviving member of the old good times is Leif Edling, the music direction is more psychedelic doom (with no epic doom elements), the new singer is completely different to Messiah (he sounds like a successful clone of Ozzy), the new guitarist has an experimental (though still doom to the core) style that has no relation to Mappe's classic riffs and Lars' thunderous solos, the production is rather "modern" featuring FX and atmospheric parts and the overall impression is that only the name remained and we have in fact a diferent group using the same moniker.

However, Leif respects the legend of this group better than any other. He didn't use crap in order to exploit the name of the band, but top material as always. He wanted to pay a tribute to his most beloved group of the past Black Sabbath with an album which have the most influences derived from the classic BS stuff. He also hired a vocalist that he sounds like the twin brother of Ozzy with a rather electric, atmospheric (and a bit stoned) voice.

When I first heard this record I supposed that it was something like Black Sabbath rip off, with a bit more depressive mood. Indeed, "Tot" for example have the same structure as "Black Sabbath": Bell's tolls and the sounds of the rain as an indroduction, slow-tempo horror-like singing at the middle and it ends with a monstrous guitar explosion. There were times that I wondered if I was listening to Candlemass, or Black Sabbath's debut or Vol. 4, with some more modern sound. But after listening to it more than two times, I started to recognise also the space rock influences that made this album so psychedelic. Sometimes the Hawkwind-Sabbath combination makes this album sound more stoner than doom.

Any novelty? The lyrics! They are so psychedelic and mad that if you read them, without listening to the music you may think that they are pessimistic nonsense. But they fit the album's mood, a total confusion both musically and lyrically, that creates an unique atmosphere, a very dangerous experimentation that only mr. Edling could make under a legendary name without being humiliated by the result.

In conclusion, this is the album that Black Sabbath sould have released after their reunion, but they never did it. But it doesn't matter. Their tradition is being continued even under the name Candlemass!

Candlemass without Messiah Marcolin? Can such a thing even exist? It can, and it is proven in this monster of an album. Candlemass truly delivers with this much more modern sounding doom metal style. As much as we would all like our beloved bands to keep on churning out the same exact album with the same exact sound over And over, it simply cannot happen. Candlemass departs from the epic sounding tones of their majestic first four albums and simply sounds over all inspired with this release. It could be said that this is not only one of Candlemass’s greatest albums, but truly at the peak of the whole metal movement.

The album opens with “Droid”, as soon as it starts you know that only a band as amazing as Candlemass could have such a killer melody and guitar and bass tone. The vocals are not opera style, so for all of you that bitch about Messiah's vocals, you will have to check this guy out, he fits the band perfectly. Next comes “Tot” a somber song, the rain and church bells at the beginning set the atmosphere, this song could be called a semi-ballad, melancholic lyrics pour out of the speakers, but then like thunder monstrous guitar riff and church bell brake the silence.

Next comes the fast paced “Elephant Star” one of the heaviest tracks, you can immediately hear the Black Sabbath influence, a great rocker. “Blumma Apt” is has a very groovy guitar riff that exclaims, “Get a bong and smoke me!” I mean is this a stoner’s song or what? If there is any low point in the album I would say it is “Arx/NG 891” It starts like a Hawkwind song(Hawkwind rules by the way), like flying saucers or something in outer space, really trippy, but not up to par with the other songs.

The album picks right up with “Zog”, this is a crusher, slow, dense, and those damn catchy riffs that Candlemass do so well, throughout the song there is a weird distortion like guitar, it adds a third dimension to the song, amazing stuff. Then comes the best track of the album in my opinion, “Galatea” is the gem of this treasure. A brilliant combination of haunting lyrics “In the grass the ogre is slayed…fragile moment of the day”, and an overall melancholy that creeps under your skin and stays with you for hours, I would say that this is one of Candlemass’s best songs ever.

The album closes with “Cyclo – f” and “Mythos”. Both are odd tracks, “Cyclo – F” is a great doom song, with a long ass drum solo in the middle, again it picks up the pace so the album ends on a crushing note. “Mythos” is like an outro, creepy if you ask me. This album is a masterpiece. From just hearing, the first couple of songs you understand that what you are listening to is out of the ordinary and that you are in the presence of greatness. It amazes me that this album gets so little recognition from the metal hordes across the world, it is simply brilliant and worth every cent of your hard earned money. Of course it dose not surprise me that this album comes from Candlemass, they are truly the masters of what they do.