### Candlemass: King of the grey islands

#### 04/06/07 || Lord K Philipson

Fat, curly-haired egomaniac out, 80’s looking remnant in. How will poor Robert Lowe (I really need to see “Youngblood” again) live up to Messiah’s past doings (it’s not like I’ll mention any of the other guys who sang for Candlemass, except for Johan, who obviously will always be the one who rules thanx to “Epenis, doopenis, metallipenis)?

Well, Lowe’s vocals are fine by all means, but we knew that from his work in the underrated Solitude Aeturnus. Candlemass’ last album, the self titled affair, was a little return to form in some aspects. A return not completely convincing, but it managed to restore some faith in the band after those 400 albums of suckage that they released after “Tales of creation”. When I learned that they went for Lowe as their vocalist after Messiah decided to be an egoistic cunt 24/7, it actually got me hoping that Candlemass could do something noteworthy again, no matter how much Messiah “is” Candlemass to most idiots.

I should have fucken known better by now.

“King of the grey islands” (now, that’s one title of ass and balls, accompanied by a cover that is the ugliest thing this side of Messiah’s haircut) shows that the vocal department is not where the problem of Candlemass lies. And when I think about it, we all knew that already. The drawback is actually Leif’s songwriting. It’s got its moments on this piece, but a return to the glory days… it’s not. I’ve said it before, tons of times… It’s not like he’s been able to write something in a massive amount of years that matches up to the first 4 classics anyways, so hey… This is stuff that us Candlemaniacs have known for a long, long time. But damn, we are talking Leif Edling here. You always gotta have faith in Leif. Even if I’m not convinced he deserves it for much longer.

“King of the grey islands” doesn’t hold any killer tunes as much as it holds some semi-killer parts within the songs. “Of stars and smoke” is proud to show off a quite nice chorus in between its pretty stale riffing. “Emperor of the void” shines a little every now and then and I can feel some old Candlemass vibes in it. “Man of shadows” is ok at best, I guess. I said this album doesn’t hold any killer tunes... I lied. There is but one gem… “Clearsight” is definitely the strongest track on “King of the grey islands”, with its intro being very reminiscent to older (classic) Candlemass stuff. The chorus is quite possibly the strongest moment on this record, without it being anything out of the ordinary when you think about it.

But…

Most of the songs are completely redundant and gives me absolutely nothing. The closer “Embracing the Styx” is one of them. “Devil seed” (despite the fact that I dig Rob’s vocals in this one, the riffs are so poor they make the country of Rwanda look like a lotto-winner) and “Demonia 6” are 2 more… Not to mention the completely useless intro for this album… It’s safe to say that it’s not a new “Gothic stone”. They should have used the one minute track, “The opal city”, as the intro instead. Now, placed where it is, this tune makes little sense. I’m wondering if there’s something wrong with my rip of this one considering it’s only around a minute long and the ending of it doesn’t feel a 100 %. Well, fuck it. “Destroyer” keeps up the boredom and drags along like there’s no other option. The quite nice ending to it doesn’t, unfortunately, help the actual song that much. Too little, too late.

On the good side, Lars is, as always, throwing out some nice solos. That guy always knew how to use that goddamn axe of his.

You see where we are at? Another Candlemass album that doesn’t cut it. My opinion stands, Leif should have killed the band after “Tales of creation”. And I guess that he did, in a lot of ways. No matter what, I have known Leif a bit for a lot of years and I’ll always respect his work, even if I don’t like it all that much. After all, he is Leif Edling.

5 anonymous doom riffs out of 10.

- Information
- Released: 2007
- Label: Nuclear Blast
- Website: www.candlemass.se
- Band
- Robert Lowe: vocals
- Lars Johansson: guitars
- Mappe Björkman: guitars
- Leif Edling: bass
- Jan Lindh: drums

- Tracklist
- 01. Prologue
- 02. Emperor of the Void
- 03. Devil Seed
- 04. Of Stars and Smoke
- 05. Demonia 6
- 06. Destroyer
- 07. Man of Shadows
- 08. Clearsight
- 09. The Opal City
- 10. Embracing the Styx