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I remember back when Candlemass released the lackluster Psalms for the Dead back in 2012, claiming it was their "last" album. Like a lot of alleged retirements, that one didn't take. Now we have their thirteenth full-length, and while their last straight-up good album was Death Magic Doom waaay back in 2009, this one is pretty good. The band's last two albums have featured tepid songwriting and just seemed like diminishing returns no matter how much they wanted to make things work. Even the return of Epicus Doomicus Metallicus vocalist Johan Langquist couldn't do much to perk up how dull The Door to Doom turned out.

It's interesting that they have made such a big selling point out of Langquist's return, when he doesn't sound anything like he used to, and instead seems to be trying very hard to sound like Robert Lowe. He doesn't sound bad, but this is not what I thought we'd be getting when the singer of classics like "Demon's Gate" came back to the mike. The production is rather weak, lacking the really magisterial heaviness I would want from this band. This is almost the exact same fucking lineup that cranked out stuff like "The Well of Souls" and "Bearer of Pain," and yet this sounds kind of weak. The riffs are solid if not better than that, and as a whole the album hangs together pretty well. The only real failing here is that this is a Candlemass album, and it should be so much better than this. I enjoy Sweet Evil Sun, but it is haunted by the ghost of the album I wanted it to be.