Sweden’s Candlemass has been resurrected once again and is serving another chunk of happy tunes about suicide and depression. These veterans of Sabbath-inspired doom metal have replaced longtime vocalist Messiah Marcolin with Robert Lowe and have offered King of the Grey Islands, an album that blends doom and gloom lyrics and instrumentation with Lowe’s somewhat power-metal-influenced vocals.

Candlemass knows how to create a depressing atmosphere. The twin guitars of Mats Bjorkman and Lars Johannsson are sludgy and dripping with dread. It is clearly out of the Tony Iommi playbook, with slow power chords backed by a powerhouse rhythm section. However, the real star of the show is Lowe, who gives the band a dimension that belies its doom metal tendencies. The closest comparison would be to Dio-era Sabbath. Lowe’s delivery adds depth and dimension to tracks like "Of Stars and Smoke" and "Devil Seed." His vocals are powerful and forceful, and he makes some of these songs a lot better than they really are, like "Demonia 6," on which he gets off some screams of which Dio himself would be proud. Lowe’s vocal style also gives a different angle to the lyrical content, which is all about depression and suicide. In other hands, these lyrics might be overbearing and self-conscious, but with Lowe at the controls, it seems more defiant, even sinister at times.

The band’s attack starts to wear a little thin after a while, a common trait with doom metal because this style goes one speed all the time. Unless you’re an enthusiast of this kind of music, the constant gloominess can become too much. The band knows how to get you to swing your heavy metal hair--just listen to the bridge on "Man of Shadows." But eventually you get tired of looking at the ground and hearing someone tell you how the world sucks. We already know the world sucks; we just want to bang our heads and fuck some shit up.

If you like Sabbath or doom metal in general, you can do a lot worse than King of the Grey Islands. This band is a group of well-schooled professionals who know what they are doing. Throw in some bitching guitar solos and Lowe’s Dio-style vocals, and you've got yourself a solid metal offering.