epic doom metal

In the whole “doom” spectrum, there are either the bands that follow a more stoner & funeral style, with slow riffing, sludgy sound and heaviness being the proponent of their sound or the ones that subscribe in the 80s Sabbath/Candlemass school, of more lyrical, lamenting, epic heavy metal, with dark subject matters.
 

Doom or occult metal with female vocals… wow, not something terribly original and something slightly overdone. While the (internet) true metal intelligentsia is foaming in the mouth for each and every band with a boris vallejo or similar fantasy cover, no matter how good it might or might not be, Smoulder’s debut “Times of Obscene Evil and Wild Daring” arrived in my share for reviews and made me wonder, if it was gonna be any good.
 

Candlemass did suffer through quite the existential crisis in the past few years. You see after returning with their classic “Messiah” led lineup for an album and some subsequent tours that lasted for a couple of years, the plethoric monk left again, due to internal band strife.