Candlemass

• Genre: Doom Metal

About

This Swedish band was an early, masterful incarnation of what evolved into Doom Metal. Their inspirations were quite apparent: you can hear Mercyful Fates' sense of devilish drama in songwriter Leif Edling's arrangements and King Diamond's operatic vocal acrobatics are present in Messiah Marcolin's forcefully delivered words of human struggle between mortality and oblivion. But most importantly, Candlemass' emotionally wrought, exasperatingly melancholic sludgescapes of slowly grinding guitars owe a deep dept to Black Sabbath. Their dark, brooding anthems do indeed evoke cold sweats of approaching doom.

- Marc Kate