Candlemass – Death Thy Lover
(Napalm Records)
Over three decades ago Swedish doom metal outfit led the charge into a bright new future for heavy music. They have produced eleven studio albums in that time and many EP’s including this latest four track offering. They do say that in music you need to adapt or die and over the years Candlemass have done exactly that moving if not into mainstream territory then slightly more upbeat and accessible at least. Death Thy Lover is far removed from the heady days of leading the field and it is a long way from how the band first sounded. That’s not to say this is a bad record, far from it, it’s actually rather good, it just isn’t innovative. Once you accept that fact then you can sit back and simply enjoy the music which is well penned and will appeal to quite a few more people than many would think. Death Thy Lover proves that there’s still plenty of life left in Candlemass.
Reviewed By Gary Trueman