Band: Candlemass Album: The King of the Grey Islands Label: Nuclear Blast Rating: 6/10 Website: http://www.candlemass.se BUY NOW!

This has been one of the most eagerly anticipated doom releases of the year. The previous self titled Candlemass album reunited the band with singer Messiah Marcolin. This seemed to be signalling a new glory period ahead for Candlemass with the classic line-up. However shortly after Messiah left and the future of Candlemass seemed uncertain again. But now a suitably good replacement has been found in the form of American Robert Lowe formerly of Solitude Aeturnus and Last Chapter. Lowe is an ideal replacement with the style of Solitude Aeturnus being pretty similar to Candlemass. I would probably rank Solitude Aeturnus last album "Alone" as one of the top doom releases of 2006. So with all this in mind I had high hopes for "King Of The Grey Island". The album begins with a mellow instrumental "Prologue". This builds up the scene suggesting the album is going to be suitably epic. It's a bit unnecessary, but doesn't really do any harm. It plays into the second track, "Emperor Of The Void". This introduces you to the central character of the album; the King Of The Grey Islands. After the second chorus the lead guitar gets going with a nice bit of guitar work. It's a heavy song with a straightforward verse chorus repetition. The album still hadn't hooked me by this point. "Devils seed" brings in demons and depression into the lyrics. It's a mid tempo Candlemass paint by numbers song. All the slow drawn out heavy riffs are there, the lyrics cover suitable occult themes. "Of stars and smokes" puts you on more epic grounds at over seven minutes. It seems to be another depression song about the meaningless nature of life; "It's all just a game". It has some nice hooks and catchy riffs and despite being longer than the previous songs doesn't seem as repetitive or to drag out. "Demonia 6" is one of the least interesting songs on the album. The riffs are too basic and nothing to really make it stand out. "Destroyer" puts you back on better ground. Lyrically you have an over indulgent human race that deserves to die and then a creature walking among them destroying it. The riffs are solid enough, some nice changes of tempo on this. "Man of shadows" has probably one of the best guitar parts of the album with them going for it and breaking past the mid tempo pace of most of the rest of the songs. "Clearsight" begins with another uninspired riff. The rhyming chorus is a bit nonsensical. It seems Lief found a number of words that conveniently rhymed and just stuck them together. "The Opal City" gives us another instrumental. It has quite a dark feel to it, but nothing really happens. It seems to be on the verge of becoming interesting, but never does. All it serves as is an intro to the last song, "Embracing the styx", which itself has a long enough intro. It's a good song to end the album on. It has everything Candlemass is about; it has an epic ness about it at eight minutes, the mid tempo riffs, dark lyrical material, and some nice hooks from the lead. The album does seem a bit like Lief Edling was being a bit lazy. The riffs are recycled from previous albums. It all has a bit of a Candlemass paint by numbers feel to it. They've run through the motions of making an album along a formula. This is not to say its bad, just a bit disappointing for a band which I expect more from. The album is all solid enough it just doesn't have the spark that made the earlier albums so good. Robert Lowe has a different singing approach to previous Candlemass singers. He isn't quite as operatic. It's a more mellow voice than messiah and works well with Candlemass. The faults with this album do not lie with problems with the singer. Ultimately the main problem is just that it isn't as good as their old material or as good as the last Solitude Aeturnus album; "Alone" or Lief's other band Krux. If this was from a new emerging doom album it would probably have excited be a bit more, but as it stands your money would be better spent on the albums previously mentioned. Its not a bad edition to the back catalogue, just that there are more essential releases first. My main hope is that the addition of Robert Lowe will lead to a stable line-up that will allow them to go onto produce something truly of worth. If nothing else it means they will have a stable line-up to tour with where I will still happily see them. Joshua Johnson Back to Reviews