Candlemass
Nightfall

THE REVIEW

For thousands of years, man's imagination has been carried away by the immense emotional, evocative, solemn, majestic, and in some ways terrifying power of the night. With its noises, its darkness, its smell. All of this is Nightfall, the second album by the Candlemass (a band from Stockholm), dated 1986, an absolute masterpiece of doom metal.

Already with "Epicus, Doomicus, Metallicus," the band had outlined the main characteristics of the genre, partly distancing it from the old sounds dictated by Black Sabbath and Pentagram; but it is with "Nightfall" that the artistic peak was reached, a peak that would never be surpassed in the future.

Sabbath-like guitars weave the fabric of every single song in the work which, thanks also to the splendid voice of the new singer Messiah Marcolin (with breathtaking vocal range and power), acquires an epic, solemn, sulfurous, and biblical charge that will be hard to find in future bands and that will make Candlemass one of the most important metal bands of all time.

The work opens with an instrumental piece "Gothic Stone" which, with its tremendously slow and martial pace, is the best presentation for the group and for Marcolin's voice, which rises in an immediate and unmistakable way in "The Well Of Souls".

The record moves swiftly (if swiftly can be spoken of in doom) until it reaches "At The Gallows End", a dramatic song that reveals the last thoughts of a man condemned to death «...with sad emotions I sing this epitaph, my tombstone, on the hills of Tyburn where the gallows stands, only the vultures will come to see me hang...» and that alternates slower, epic parts with faster, much more heavy and easy listening parts.

However, the gem of the piece is encountered with the next track: "Samarithan". Here it is Marcolin's voice that dominates the scene, and a splendid guitar solo leads the listener to measure themselves against the greatness and the artistic and intellectual vision of bassist Leif Edling, who is the creator of music and lyrics. Making the atmosphere even sadder and heavier is the sixth track, which is nothing other than a cover of one of Chopin's most famous compositions (Marche Funèbre).

Thus, we arrive at "Mournful Lament": the lyrics are something magnificent and represent the sad farewell, heart-wrenching in its pain, for the loss of a child «...I remember your light and in my heart I am with you every night, your journey into the unknown will be very long...». Here, the whole song is dramatically evocative, leaving aside the faster riffs that characterized some previous tracks. To lift the listener from suffering, there's "Bewitched" (perhaps the band's most famous song) with its dark, sulfurous, and seductive pace. Closing the masterpiece is "Black Candles", another instrumental featuring a very beautiful guitar loop.

"Nightfall" is a masterpiece of doom metal. A record to be absorbed through multiple listens (perhaps in the dark, while driving at night or reading the splendid lyrics) because of the pachydermic solos and its funerary pacing, but which will reserve many emotions for those who manage to listen to and make this masterpiece their own.

Please don't hold it against me if this review seemed particularly tedious to you, but if instead, I manage to introduce you to an album (and a genre) that you didn't know before, I will have fulfilled my purpose.

Moreover, I apologize to Cold Fuckin Winter who posted the work before me, but the piece is so beautiful that I couldn't help but write my personal review.