[Metal] Candlemass, Lorna Shore & Crowbar
It’s been a hectic week in the Skald household as spring hit us in full force, bringing with it tons of stuff to do on the homestead. Garden this, ponds that, repairs, birch pollen...
You know the drill if you have a country house.
I have to say I’m pretty stoked that I finally got around to removing the remote-controlled door-opener for the front door. The previous owner was wheelchair-assisted after a stroke, so they had it installed. I’ve been looking at the fucking thing every day for close to ten years, meaning to remove it.
Well, it’s over.
It’s done.
I’m preparing for the local gaming con that’s held yearly, where a buddy and I are hosting a wargame recreating the Battle of Jutland. It’s 1/6000 scale on a 6x8’ table (we hope, space permitting), using the Fighting Battleships ruleset by Brian Phillips.
I’m also participating in a DBMM tournament at the con, this time with a mishmash of miniatures to represent 3/11 Avar. I don’t have an army for Book 3, so I’ve got to make do with what I have lying around from other armies, plus what I can borrow from friends. I had two test games during the week against different opponents and got my ass handed to me, but the army feels sound and natural for my style of wargaming. Just have to decide which version of the list to bring.
I started and finished re-reading Neuromancer by William Gibson as well. I read most of Gibson’s stuff in the nineties or so when sci-fi started to grow on me. Strangely enough, even though I like reading cyberpunk and love watching those kinds of movies, I never really got into the genre for TTRPGs. There is something about the grandeur of megacities, the webways, and the individual’s place in it all that I have never really been able to verbalize in a way that made it feel “real,” or up to my standards.
(Pre-post edit: I re-read out Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? aswell as I was waiting for the album-reviews to drop in, took me about 10 hrs. As solid as I remembered it.)
Between everything else, I gave the albums from the last post the repeated listens they deserve. I thought I’d add my notes on the bands and albums before getting into the individual reviews. Because again, I am really putting my nose to the grindstone when it comes to getting into metal and repetition is key. As Weasel and Laangeman have sent me their reviews, it’s time to release the post into the wild.
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Candlemass – Epicus Doomicus Metallicus (1986)
The kings of epic doom who created the slow, melodic, and melancholic style with this album.
Skald: ”I vividly remember stepping out of the local grocery store in the village I moved to in '89, replacing the batteries in my Walkman and flipping the tape of Candlemass' Epicus Doomicus Metallicus. Doom was a pretty new concept for me then, even though I obviously had an understanding of slow, (slightly) downtuned metal already.
The band has stuck with me since the 80s and has been a staple with a song or two on pretty much all mix-tapes and playlists throughout the years. This album specifically is as close to a perfect album as you can get. With Solitude clearly being the pièce de résistance, listening to the whole record again, I rediscover how much the songs compliment each other.
There are very few, if any, unnecessary riffs or sections placed there just to add minutes to the LP. I also have a new appreciation for how much the production and mixing let the bass cut through the mix. I can clearly hear all the tiny, subtle slides, ghost notes, and accents that Edling uses in his bass playing. I love it.
As close to a flawless album as you can get, and it has forever been on my "top ten albums to bring to a desert island" list. 10/10.”
Laangeman: ”What can I say that the title of the album hasen't already clearly stated? It's epic, quintessential doom and most definitly metal!
There will never, to me, be a doom metal song that beats Solitude. A few have come close (I'm looking at you At the Gallows End), but can’t reach first place no matter what.
Candlemass is one of my all time favorite bands, and think that if they had not been told to switch singers to get their first record deal, it might not have come to be. Edling is a great song writer but when it comes to singing... I have heard the demos for EDM where he also does the main vocals, it's not even in the same realm as Johan Längqvist.”
Weasel: ”What can you say about an album that is widely regarded as a subgenre classic?
I suppose you can talk about the contrast between the wailing vocals of Johan Längqvist and the “What if we made Black Sabbath a little heavier?” riffing. Or the completely irony-free songs about demons and witches, which somehow comes off as completely sincere in spite of, or perhaps because of, the very deliberate constructions of the songs.
Maybe how there is a surprising amount of clever craft hiding away in the songs even though the band is happy enough to return to punishing doom riffs at regular intervals?
Yeah, I don’t know. Pick any of them. Doom metal is an occasional thing for me, but this is easily a favourite album. A 4.5 out of 5 if I were to rate it, which I just did.”
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Lorna Shore – Flesh Coffin (2015)
The album bridged the gap between traditional deathcore and the more modern "symphonic deathcore".
Weasel: ”The second album on the list was one I had never actually heard before, so I was excited to give it a go. As a bonus, I don’t have a ton of exposure to Deathcore and it’s always good to expand your horizons.
I am not certain this really did the job in selling me on the genre.
It is not a bad album certainly, but I think while the band tries to add a lot of flair with occasional melodic bits, the sort of “foggy” distorted growls and occasional progressive segments, I can’t say it really fetches me.
I found myself sitting in a spot where I wished it was either more “pure” death metal or that it was leaning heavier into the snippets of progressive and even in times semi-symphonic metal. The intersection just did not land for me.
That being said, it has the markings of an album that could mean quite a lot to you if you heard it at just the right time.
A 2 out of 5 for me, but it might not be for you.”
Skald: ”I haven't really heard Lorna Shore previously, other than some snippets here and there. Listening to Flesh Coffin was a tad rough, not gonna lie. All members of the band at the time are obviously very talented and at the top of the pack in terms of technical ability.
But... between the Yngwie-style shredding on "Offering of Fire," the extremely tight timing of the rhythm section throughout the whole album, and the absence of bass (which just disappears in the mix), it's just not "alive." It's a wall of noise coming at me at lightning speed.
I can see why it's appealing, and why Lorna Shore is such a popular band. But for me, it boils down to the fact that too much is going on at once; it gets squished in the Death Star trash compactor before being stomped into my ears.
As Fenriz (Darkthrone, et al.) put it, and I'm paraphrasing: "Compression and digital time-shifting down to the nanosecond killed what extreme metal is about."
The best song on the album is "The//Watcher," where the tremolo picking shines through and reminds me of Ablaze My Sorrow's 2002 album Anger, Hate and Fury. The final score? Yeah, but no/10.
Laangeman: TBA
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Crowbar – Crowbar (1993)
Creators of ”Southern Sludge” who fused the aggression of hardcore punk with doom heaviness.
Laangeman: ”I had not heard Crowbar before and I will probably not become a frequent listener in the future. In the lower and slower parts the singer did a fine job, when he tries to go higher and faster, not so much. In my opinion he sounds a bit "skitnödig" in plain swedish. Best: No Quarter, while High Rate Extinction gets a goldstar for the nod to Slayer.”
Skald: "Crowbar’s Crowbar is an easy listen for me, as I have been a fan for years. They entered my realm via their hardcore-adjacent style rather than the metal sphere. I have always felt that Kirk Windstein (vocals/guitar, the only constant member through the years) is a bit more "real" in his lyrics than other bands coming from the same area and influences. This is obviously a very personal take, but lyrics are pretty much always more important to me than the musicianship itself.
This is a solid 6/10 album in that regard, wearing its hardcore influences on its sleeve with a nice mix of groove-metal on top. The best song here is "All I Had (I Gave)," while the best track of all time from Crowbar remains "Cemetery Angels" (to no one's surprise).
I was talking to Laangeman before I wrote this, and we agreed that while I like Kirk's vocals, he sounds a bit "squished." It would have been cool to hear him open up a bit more in the throat. Instead of just building up pressure on the inside, imagine if it could explode outwards."
Weasel: ”Another one I had never heard before, having next to no experience with the sludge scene. Even if I had not peeked at Wikipedia, I think I could have guessed this was a southern US band from the combination of groove with grimy mid-tempo guitar noodling that you just settle into before the heaviness gets chugging.
There are certain albums where I end up wishing I smoked weed, because I think I am missing something while listening to them. This is probably one of those.
A good measure of whether an album “rules” is how much I end up nodding my head while listening and this one got the ole noggin going on pretty much every song.
Hard to score because I had a great time listening to it, but I am not sure if sludge makes a regular rotation for me. 3.5 out of 5?”
/Skald