You see, while Death Angel and Suffocation released some incredible examples of a group hitting the ground running, what sets the latest Candlemass effort apart from anything their peers were able to offer is the fact that it isn't simply a consolidation of the qualities that made its predecessors so intensely listenable. Far from it in fact, as the up-tempo chug of "The Black Dwarf" provides a clear signal at the start of the record that the melodramatic doom of _Nightfall_ and _Ancient Dreams_ shall remain consigned to the past. Even when Candlemass does slow things down -- as they do superbly on the haunting "Seven Silver Keys" -- there's a genuine sense of evolution. This is not simply a case of a band capitalizing on nostalgia to make a decent record; this is arguably the direction in which they always would have headed anyway, and that in itself makes the prospect of future releases from the band almost more exciting than this self-titled monster.