Candlemass
Death Magic Doom

The one I'm about to write about is the second major release of 2009, including, in broad terms and speaking of the (almost) same Doom realm, also “For Lies I Sire” by My Dying Bride which still, in the opinion of the author, needs to be thoroughly “digested” to be able to give an objective judgment. But, after all, dealing with a genre whose proclaimed and verified philosophy is never “easy” on first listens, this is not a bad thing. Quite the contrary.
As far as my limited experience in the field counts, it is precisely the albums that are not too catchy on first listens that later reserve beautiful surprises. Of course, this is a kind of pleasure that requires patience and perseverance to be fully appreciated.
Or maybe not. It may not be so, and a record might be appreciated right from when, maybe, a few notes are heard, even in the distance, even if only hinted. And then it will be about albums that will enter your head, and you'll listen to them dozens and dozens of times, then they'll be abandoned, and then, as time goes by, you'll pick them up again and listen to them anew, rediscovering them once again, and so on indefinitely.
There is also the third case, however, of records that have entered history; containing immortal songs that can never be forgotten, and each time you listen to them, a new detail is captured, a different nuance. Of the latter, however, to be honest, it must be said that it can never be asserted with certainty whether few or many have been published, because tastes, as clear and cliché as the sun, are subjective and not objective matter, and therefore each of us will have their own record, or more likely, their own series of records to which they are particularly attached and which, according to each one’s judgment standard, can be considered masterpieces.

In my opinion, Candlemass falls into all three categories I mentioned above. But this is nothing new. At least not for me.
Now as heralds of a genre that they themselves have helped to structure and cement thanks to their past works, today, after already in the previous album (excluding their collection “Lucifer Rising”), they had replaced their “big gun” Messiah Marcolin, endowed with a powerful, melodic, and dramatic voice, hard to reproduce and replicate, with the current singer Robert Lowe from Solitude Aeternus, possessing a rougher and rawer tone and still different from that of Messiah, but not for this less powerful and expressive, they release this “Black Magic Doom”, which, even if, hypothetically, going ahead and blaspheming, it were a “horrific”, it bears a title that certainly summarizes in three words the meaning that can be gleaned from it.
But here I blasphemed, and not to abuse the reader's patience, I now say that this album is not a horror, but, without putting the cart before the horse prematurely, is what can be judged as a “textbook” record. Indeed, let’s give ourselves airs and take a higher profile: the record of the quarter.

It was predictable, after all: class is never just water, and Candlemass is a glaring example of that. After all, what can one expect from the Giants, if not that they should release massive works? And “Black Magic Doom” is a massive work. Not for its duration, mind you, but for its exceptional content.
There are no “filler” songs here, no “hits” more deserving to be framed than the others: every song is a standalone episode and would require a separate review, but it would be wasted time and bandwidth nevertheless. It is enough, in this case, to talk about the minimal common denominator that crosses them and makes them homogeneous concerning certain specific aspects: the sound’s power, which is not “so perfect” but gives that something extra in a leaden and swampy atmosphere that is the group’s recognizable mark from afar; the vocalist’s performance, which at times may seem a bit forced but actually soon becomes clear it was studied on purpose to appear and be listened to precisely in that manner; the catchy refrains, yes, but which still fit perfectly into the instrumental structure of the songs that are not catchy, but instead sometimes dive into elusive melodic intricacies that appear and disappear; and lastly, the inevitable references to the Doom forebears of this style: Black Sabbath was Ronnie J. Dio above all, as well as St. Vitus and various Valhallas.

This latter aspect is the most interesting to delve into regarding this album: the references to Toni Iommi’s group are evident, as is probably appropriately so, and take two directions: an instrumental and therefore structural one of the songs, and one concerning the vocal lines that, at times, would not be out of place at all if performed by Ronnie J. Dio in person, precisely.
This, however, I want to repeat, is not a flaw but rather a virtue: how can one speak poorly of Candlemass when they themselves have always reinvented and offered the distortion and alchemical improvement of the Doom construct’s base, which is certainly not their exclusive legacy?
Nothing new is invented here, rather it is reworked, dirtied a bit, bastardized again, and made darker and more epic. What results is a work that takes a completely particular and certainly fascinating direction, sometimes classic, as in “Hammer of Doom,” thanks also, to mention another, to the keyboard inserts never marked but intelligently placed and veiled at the right moments to further underscore, from time to time, the epic or tragedy or pain that emerges from the notes. A striking example is “Clouds of Dementia,” to conclude.

So, Ladies and Gentlemen, with ears trained, but not necessarily too much, to the Doom stride, here we find ourselves in the presence of Masters who know perfectly well what they are doing and what they want to achieve. Without hesitation. Enjoy it.