WHEN LEIF EDLING founded doom pioneers Candlemass in the Swedish municipality of Upplands Väsby in late 1984, he had one mission. “We wanted to be the heaviest band in the world,” says the bassist. “We wanted to be heavier and more metal than anyone.”
Candlemass made good on that promise. Their grandiose, distinctly northern European sound was best encapsulated on Solitude, the magnificent opening track of their 1986 debut album, Epicus Doomicus Metallicus. This half-speed symphony of sadness was the perfect marriage of heaviness and grandeur, an epic wail of desolation that still stands as a doom metal landmark nearly 40 years after its release. As Leif puts it: “Solitude is our Paranoid.”
The bassist had formed Candlemass from the ashes of his previous band, Nemesis, with drummer Matz Ekström. The pair spent all their spare krona at Stockholm record shop Heavy Sounds, picking up the latest albums from the likes of Venom,
