Reviews list for Candlemass - Ancient Dreams (1988)

Candlemass deliver the same kind of quality, riff-driven epic Trad Doom as always. Again with Messiah’s intense vocal prowess, the album retains the sound from Nightfall. Ancient Dreams tends to be seen as a drop in quality, but I instead see it as a trade off of sorts. There is no doubt that Ancient Dreams fails to deliver the same highs as Nightfall; however, it also does away with any sort of filler material, which dragged Nightfall down a bit. What remains is an extremely consistent album where every song is of equal quality – an odd exception being the title track, who’s riffs are just odd, and Messiah’s vocals don’t really play off them well.

All in all, another high quality Trad Doom album that should be given the same respect as the rest of Candlemass’ first four albums.

From looking at the reviews from others on here, it appears I'm not alone in my feelings towards this album. It's a very solid Candlemass release, but it doesn’t match either of the preceding releases, which is why it tends to be overlooked. But if you take the album as it is, there's a lot of enjoyment to be had. The blueprint had already been set previously and perhaps this third album is just following the rules a bit too much, without breaking new ground, to be considered a classic.

Mirror Mirror is typical Candlemass and probably my favourite track on Ancient Dreams. All the other tracks, except for Bearer of Pain and Epistle No. 81, which are a bit average, are all quite decent without being exceptional. But I think it would be harsh to write the album off for being consistently good, if not as amazingly brilliant as Epicus Doomicus Metallicus and Nightfall were. The slightly middle eastern sound that raises its head occasionally is interesting and they manage to move things from monstrously slow (and doomy) to upbeat (and still doomy) with ease. I'm going to stick up for Ancient Dreams and give it 4 stars as it's very worthy of any doom metal fan's attention.