I might be a rarity here, but when I heard that Candlemass was (again) abandoning their plans to become a live-only band and that they were reuniting with the vocalist who graced their legendary debut, Epicus Doomicus Metallicus, I was... pretty much not at all hyped about it. Let's be real here, Johan Langquist was incredible in 1986, but fuck guys it's been 32 years and he's done essentially fuck all since then. He pops up every now and again to join Candlemass onstage but he's only ever sang Epicus songs with them when he does, he auditioned to join the band full time in the early 90s (it's easy to forget he was just a session guy they hired on the debut, though the band loved him back then and wanted him to join for real) and lost the gig to Thomas Vickstrom (and rightly, I should add, I've heard his demo of "At the Gallows End" from that era and he butchers it), and apart from his occasional appearances onstage to remind everybody that he sang "Solitude", I haven't seen much evidence that he's done a whole lot of singing at all in the decades since then. Forgive me for being cynical, but we are currently neck deep in the era of nostalgia where every metal band that existed from 81-94 is getting the band back together for fests to play shit they wrote in their early twenties, and Leif is a savvy businessman who knows that he can maximize hype for himself by bringing back a nostalgic favorite and attaching it to the only band of his that anybody gives a shit about instead of fully moving on with one of his other projects or finally giving Mats Leven the chance he deserves.
And now that The Door to Doom is finally out, I feel somewhat vindicated, because this is exactly as uninspiring and average as I expected.
One thing I want to get out of the way right away is that Johan does sound very good. I expected him to sound like what he is, a washed up fluke decades past his prime, but I'll eat a small bit of crow here and admit that he sounds excellent here. Even if you totally ignore the surprise at the vigor in his voice for being a session guy who has been out of the scene for three decades, he sounds great on his own. Instead of sounding worn out and lame like I expected, he sounds like any other good epic doom vocalist out there today. He sounds weathered in a way that implies he's an old guard warrior who has put his time in and experienced everything he's singing about. I wish his voice blended with the music a bit better, as he's mixed in such a way where he sounds like he's singing in a completely different studio and slapped on top of the band long after the fact, and his completely dry and reverb-less sheen is distracting in how much louder it is than the rest of the band, but he turns in a great performance nonetheless. He may be lacking the range of previous vocalists, but if Candlemass is good at anything, it's landing iconic vocalists with loads of charisma, and I can safely say that Lanquist truly does deserve to be in the same conversation as Messiah and Lowe on that metric alone.
But what truly drags the album down is just how workmanlike and uninspired the songs themselves are. Leif has been on autopilot for a while now, basically cycling the same four or five songs on every single album since the reformation in 2004 between all of his projects. He's basically doing what Rolf did with Running Wild, constantly releasing similar albums between several projects and only generating interest with the original band that made him famous in the first place. The difference is that Toxic Taste and Giant X guided what Running Wild was doing, Candlemass has always been the one leading Krux and The Doomsday Kingdom. What this really means is that Leif has gotten comfortable in his songwriting, and once again we've seen him release something only sort-of inspired and overall triumphantly average. The Door to Doom is functionally identical to Psalms for the Dead or Death Magic Doom, further showcasing that the band really doesn't seem to be able to tap into whatever it was that made them so much larger than life in the classic era. There's no splendor here, instead it's much more down to earth and rocking, which is fine on principle but can be disappointing when the riffs don't do much to excite you. I can name the good parts, it's not hard. The explosive riff on "Under the Ocean" absolutely demolishes, "House of Doom" has a very "Crystal Ball"-esque sense of demonic psychedelia, and "Astrolus - The Great Octopus" channels the best of Heaven and Hell's The Devil You Know with it's monolithic pace and heaviness (and no I'm not just making that connection because of Tony Iommi's guest appearance, though it certainly helps). Everything else just kinda... happens. "Death's Wheel" and "Black Trinity" are total non-songs that contribute absolutely nothing beyond pure banality, "The Omega Circle" feels longer than it is and the fadeout two thirds of the way through just feels excessive, "Bridge of the Blind" is a pointless quiet bridge that would've worked better if it was only a minute long and treated like an interlude, and "Splendor Demon Majesty" opens the album with a quicker pace but fails to grab you in the same way "If I Ever Die" or "Prophet" did on the previous albums. And then that's it, five of the eight songs are just unnecessary.
The Devil You Know is a good point of comparison for me, because I was also totally underwhelmed with it on the whole and it's for mostly the same reason. Heaven and Hell didn't utilize the members efficiently and didn't play to Dio's strengths because he's always worked best when there's a sense of magical wonder behind him. The Door to Doom also plays against Candlemass's strengths by focusing less on the wide-eyed splendor and almost spiritual undercurrent of their classic era, instead focusing purely on heaviness and downtrodden Sabbathisms. The dark psychedelia can work in certain contexts (see "House of Doom") but something like "Bridge of the Blind" or "The Omega Circle" just could've been approached in a different way that better encapsulated what made everybody fall in love with Candlemass in the first place.
Overall I don't necessarily dislike The Door to Doom, but it's a very average album. Not quite mediocre, not quite enjoyable, just... there. If this didn't have the legendary name attached to it, it would likely fly as a flavor of the month joy for doomheads before quickly fading away, and that's just disappointing. Johan's surprisingly great vocals and "Under the Ocean" and "Astrolus" alone can't carry the album. Maybe it's not fair, but this is just completely unexciting coming from a band that we all know is capable of writing some of the greatest metal albums of all time. I think the hard pill we need to swallow is that the guys simply aren't capable of that anymore. And that's just heartbreaking.
RATING: 58%
Good review, and sadly I have to agree with most of it. Actually I think Längquist sounds better live than on the album so his performance here was a bit of a letdown. In places he even sounds like Léven, possibly because he might have learned the songs using Léven's guide vocals. Live he actually does a pretty good job on some of the Messiah-era stuff as well (yeah, they're tuning down but it works to his advantage that he doesn't try to sound like Marcolin at all, and makes the songs his own).
ReplyDeleteThe problem is really the writing. It's a shame, I think Edling wrote really strong (and most importantly memorable) material for all 3 Avatarium albums, but for Candlemass he just seems to be going through the motions...