Album Review: Candlemass - The Door To Doom

Here we sit with a new Candlemass album, the first one with singer Johan Langqvist since their ground-breaking debut, and there's only one thing floating around in my mind; this shouldn't be happening. I remember quite vividly sitting down to write my review of "Psalms For The Dead", which was promised to be the end of their recording career. Here we sit seven years later, and Candlemass joins the long line of bands over the years who have outright lied to my face. Here's the thing about that; I'm sick and tired of it. We know bands never retire until they physically can't perform anymore, and even then they still try everything they can to keep the machine rolling. All Candlemass had to do was say they were stepping away, that they didn't know if anything would ever happen again. Instead, they lied to garner sympathy and good reviews, and now they want me to embrace this record with open arms. I'm not that forgiving.

So while I'm admitting I hate the very existence of this record, let's try to be fair to the music. Frankly, Candlemass left us on a rather weak note. "Psalms For The Dead" was the worst record of that last era, and "Death Magic Doom" had been frustratingly inconsistent. Leif Edling is capable of writing some great stuff, but he seldom delivers entire records without filling them with boring doom that lacks spark.

The big difference with "The Door To Doom" is that, intentional or not, the return to their beginnings includes a production that is raw and not far off the retro occult-rock bands that are all over the place now. The guitars don't have their usual big, fuzzy doom sound. That choice does leave the record not sounding as big or as heavy as what doom has become known for. It's in line with where the band started, but I find that rather cynical. They have their original singer, so they also reverted to their original production sound. This album almost pretends the last twenty-plus years of evolution didn't happen.

The good news is that Johan sounds great. He's able to hit the same qualities Rob Lowe did, but with extra old-school grit. His voice is capable of doing everything Candlemass could ask, which is why it's sad he is saddled with music that doesn't give him anything interesting to sing. Over the years, Leif had been adding more and more melody to the songs, to the point where the last two records were at points hybrids of doom and sing-alongs. That's why I loved "The Bleeding Baroness", and there isn't anything on this record that holds a candle to that one.

Maybe we could excuse the reversion in approach if the riffs were delivering in epic fashion, but that's not happening either. There's no "Of Stars And Smoke" here. The riffs are standard Candlemass, but without the snap and hook they're capable of. The cruel way of putting it is to say the guitar work on this record is like if the producer challenged Tony Iommi to throw out all of his good riffs, and replace them live as they were recording. Speaking of Tony, he contributes a solo to "Astorolus - The Great Octopus", one of the dumbest titled songs I can recall in recent memory.

The main problem with this record is that there isn't anything memorable about it. After seven years, and with the reunion as a catalyst, I expected far better than this. Avatarium's albums have been far more interesting, perhaps because they forced Leif out of his comfort zone. "The Door Of Doom" is Candlemass by-the-numbers, which might be what some people want to hear, but it walks back the interesting developments over the years. They strip things back so far all we have is the stone in the middle of the fruit. It might be able to sprout in time, but it doesn't nourish right now.

My issues with the band aside, "The Door To Doom" just isn't very good. It certainly wasn't worth resurrecting the band for.