CANDLEMASS: Tales of Creation CD Original 1989 M.F.N. Fully SIGNED / AUTOGRAPHED

A Tale of Triumph!

It comes as no surprise that this is the most overblown album on this concept, though one that manages to avoid several well-worn cliches and ends up an accessible and thrilling listen. I think that the concept doesn’t interfere with any of the enjoyment on offer, unless you count those very short narrative fragments that take up about a minute of the album in total. The sum total of the songs and the surprising compactness of the experience (an epic album only just exceeding 40 minutes) more than outweighs the slight deviation of those parts.

The first thing to make you sit up and take notice is the absolutely crushing guitar tone that hits you like a handful of gravel to the face and a concrete boot in the nuts the moment ‘The Prophecy’ opens up. There was no precedent for this on any other Candlemass album before, what with the weak tone on ‘Nightfall’ and the dryness of ‘Ancient Dreams’, nor have the band ever repeated the miracle that is the rhythm tone. It’s crunchy and doomy, sounds superbly in your face and vaguely reverent at the same time, plus it works very well at pace, which ‘Dark Reflections’, ‘Through the Infinitive Halls of Death’, and ‘Into the Unfathomed Tower’ demand. The whole band sounds enormous as well, as if they are recording in the vault of Heaven or a cave under the sea, and harnessing all the primal power that flows from their location. The drums bite and thunder, Edling’s bass swings menacingly beneath the guitar torrent, Lars Johansson shreds and wails like a holy choir, and Messiah does exactly what is required – believes that he is God and never wavers in his belief. Some songs on previous Candlemass albums suffered from his overblown delivery (we’re all thinking of ‘Samaritan’, I know), but an album like ‘Tales of Creation’ demands that he reach for the limits of his ability, and he does not disappoint, picking off the slower songs with easy finesse, while he supplies an airy melody for ‘Dark Reflections’ that stands out among his contributions to this band.

The significant detail that separates this album from ‘Ancient Dreams’ for me (and I thought that was a fine album) is that the surprises sound so fresh and bursting with energy. Maybe it’s the production, but the double bass shredfest ‘Into the Unfathomed Tower’ that explodes between the slower ‘Tears’ and ‘The Edge of Heaven’ is a swaggering statement that declares, “If Candlemass had been a power metal band, we would have been the best at that too”. It’s utterly brutal and fantastic for an instrumental, plus it injects a sense of fun into the album that might otherwise render it slightly po-faced. The sheer irreverence of slapping a 7 part, 3 minute song into a concept album about the creation of the world…words fail me. Then ‘Tears’ itself is nothing to sniff at, though it strips the riff approach back to a very simple level and skips off a gorgeous time change into an unexpectedly exuberant chorus that Messiah utterly owns. ‘Under the Oak’, ‘The Edge of Heaven’, and ‘A Tale of Creation’ are the full-fat doom epics that the band were always so brilliant at, the last of which has an irresistible surge of emotion as Messiah leads into the (pre?) chorus of “With my tears the rain fell down”. I also find it a refreshing take on an oft-repeated subject, from a different perspective, and with the typical weight-of-the-world-and-soul-of-God Candlemass style closing the song as Johansson embellishes the same riff that opened the album to bring us back full circle.

As usual with this band, I can’t make up my mind if I have complaints or if I’m just nit-picking. There’s nothing particularly wrong with ‘Somewhere in Nowhere’, which goes darker and more trudging than anything else, though it ends up a bit repetitive, maybe causing the band to cut it short after two choruses. ‘Under the Oak’ is a great song, but it was already a great song on ‘Epicus Doomicus Metallicus’, so there might be some fans who feel slightly cheated by the inclusion of a reworked number. I don’t mind too much, since tt fits the album well, there are some subtle changes, and Messiah gets to record his take on the vocals, plus it forms an integral part of the concept. That aside, there’s not really anything that bothers me, since all the performances are right up there, especially the lead guitar work. Maybe I would suggest that the band could use a font in the lyrics booklet that can actually be read, but now I knowI’m nit-picking.

Of all the four classic 80’s albums, this Candlemass offering seems to be the most organised and polished. The production is flawless, every song has a part to play, each of the musicians contributes something special, and the atmosphere occasionally takes your breath away. Something happened around the turn of the decade that changed the general aesthetic of Candlemass and, while they would continue to make great music, the sense of peeling back the mysteries of the world and looking directly at its meaning would be lost forever.