Chapter VI 1992

""Chapter VI" did not do well in terms of sales, which lead to Candlemass splitting up effectively splitting up and going on hiatus for a good handful of years, before returning in 1998 with a couple of more psychedelic albums.

"Chapter VI" certainly is not my favorite Candlemass album, and I think that the reason is that some of the doom and gloom of the previous releases is missing from this album, many of the tracks being more uptempo. Also, the use of prominent keyboards on this release add both a more gothic sound and, unfortunately, also make the chees-o-meter go dangerously high.

This is not to say that this is a bad album. Many of the uptempo tracks range from decent to quite good, and a track like "Where the Runes Still Speaks" is an awesome epic doom metal track (which would have been even more awesome with less keyboards). And there are plenty of other interesting ideas scattered throughout. As a whole, the album is just not up to scratch compared to most of Candlemass' discography.

I think that another reason why this album sold poorly could be that it was the first since their debut album to not feature Messiah Marcolin's vibrato-riddled operatic acrobatics. I must say that I think that the vocalist on this album Thomas Vikström does a very good job and rivals any other vocalist that has graced Candlemass.

(review originally posted on metalmusicarchives.com)"