Death Thy Lover Candlemass 2016 Napalm Records Candlemass are a Doom Metal band from Sweden and are one of the bands that took the slow, heavy blues of Black Sabbath, slowing it down into a grinding, heavy sludge that has come to what we expect from Doom Metal today. Death Thy Lover is the 4th EP released by Candlemass and their first studio release since 2012’s Psalms for the Dead. Death Thy Lover is a very welcome release as bassist and founding member Leif Edling hinted previously that after Psalms for the Dead, Candlemass would be finished. However, this isn’t the case and has retracted that previous statement by saying that Candlemass are working on a new album. The current Candlemass line-up consists of the perennial bass of Edling and Mappe Björkman on the rhythm guitar. Long standing members of Lars Johansson on the lead guitar and Jan Lindh on the drums are also present. Death Thy Lover is the first release with the latest Candlemass vocalist, Mats Levén who replaced Robert Lowe after he left before the release Psalms for the Dead. The production of Death Thy Lover is very typical of what you would expect from Candlemass and has been produced by David Castillo. What you get with Death Thy Lover is heavy, slow and melodic songs, but as opposed to their counterparts of the genre who add deep or growling vocals into the mix, Candlemass manage to keep a very almost classic metal feel to their take on Doom Metal. Death Thy Lover contains just 4 tracks and clocks in at just over 26 minutes. The title track is very good, it is extremely catchy and has a real 70s rock vibe to it. The chorus of Death Thy Lover is very memorable showing that Edling can still write a decent song after 30 years in the business and the memorability of the song is a testament to Levén’s vocals who melodic tones really help the lyrics sit right in that point where you will be humming Death Thy Lover for days. Following on from Death Thy Lover is Sleeping Giant. Sleeping Giant is a grinding song full of loveable Doom Metal hooks that sound as if it wouldn’t be out of place on Black Sabbath’s Heaven and Hell or Mob Rules with Levén’s voice having the tones and timbre of the late, great Ronnie James Dio. The only thing that lets Sleeping Giant down is the extremely clichéd yawns/sighs after the chorus when Levén sings sleeping, sleeping giant. Death Thy Lover draws to a close with The Goose, an instrumental that runs for six and half minutes and doesn’t really seem to go anywhere. The Goose is the song that truly lets the EP down and it wouldn’t be wrong to say that Death Thy Lover would easily be just as good without it and as far as instrumentals go, it is pretty poor. As far as an EP goes, if you remove the instrumental, Death Thy Lover is more than decent and is a great debut for Levén who easily proves that he is able fill the shoes of Lowe. Going forward for Candlemass, if this is the quality of an EP, then a full studio album of this standard is highly anticipated. 7/10 Adam Death Thy Lover (Edling)
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