Band:	Candlemass
Album:	King Of The Grey Islands
Style:	Epic doom metal
Release date:	June 2007

01. Prologue
02. Emperor Of The Void
03. Devil Seed
04. Of Stars And Smoke
05. Demonia 6
06. Destroyer
07. Man Of Shadows
08. Clearsight
09. The Opal City
10. Embracing The Styx
11. At The Gallows End [U.S. bonus] [re recorded version]
12. Solitude [U.S. bonus] [re recorded version]

Wow, I finished listening of "King of the Grey Island" and just picked my jaw up off the floor. I must have been on the dark side of the moon, passing the band for so long. My first contact with Candlemass can be summed up in one word - impressive.

This is the first album with the new vocalist Robert Lowe, who took over the position after Messiah Marcolin. I'll leave off the question as to who's better, but what I can say is that Mr. Lowe has an absolutely fantastic voice with a very enjoyable kind of screaming. It would be a mistake to think that Candlemass plays classic protracted and slow hammering doom. I don't know every deep corner of doom metal, nor are there many doom bands in my collection, but this kind of epic doom reminded me of Black Sabbath even more than My Dying Bride, an incarnation of doom metal for me. This is heavy doom metal where every tone is empowered by deep and heavy riffs backed up with rich drumming and Mr. Lowe's screaming.

The third song especially, "Devil Seed", sounds like a piece that Tony Iommi had his fingers on. Fourth track "Of Stars and Smoke" is too far from the routine waters of many metal songs. This piece is goddamn awesome and I guarantee you it will rank very high on your top charts. "Emperor of the Void" and "Devil Seed" are among the highlights too. Others are also good, but now we'll come to the "King's" problem. Towards the end of the album, some songs become a little similar to each other and two or three aren't that attractive, in my opinion. On the second half of the album, there is just one song with an above standard status - "Clearsight".

I could write here about quality of the band, but I won't. Candlemass isn't a new group in the metal scene and their fans already know it. Those who don't know them have a good reason to get to know them by "King of the Grey Islands".