review by: Roberto Martinelli

It was originally thanks to this album that I even discovered Candlemass. I found an old, second hand, forgotten tape of Ancient Dreams at a bookstore years ago, and I've been a fan ever since.

Looking at the band's work now, it's ironically clear that Ancient Dreams is the worst of the first four albums from this essential Swedish doom band. It's certainly the cheesiest. It's apparent that the band's founder, Leif Edling, agrees, as he slams most of the songs on this album in the interview found on the second, bonus disk of this package.

But we are getting ahead of ourselves. Ancient Dreams is still a totally worthy album to have. Messiah Marcolin's voice may be kind of alarmingly cheesy, but he's still a major presence both in terms of talent and character. The truth is that in order to like Ancient Dreams, you'll probably have had to have been exposed to Candlemass at an early age, at a time before the cheese detecting powers that come with adulthood are able to prevent you from accepting this album. If this is your situation, too bad for you. Sure, the songs may be kinda dumb, but they're still Candlemass doom! And they still contain Lars Johansson's killer soloing, Marcolin's enjoyable vocals, and some of the most memorable, simple riffs ever. Most will probably choose to enjoy clandestinely.

Actual musical content aside, of the three Powerage reissues, this is the one that benefits the most by the re-mastering, so in a sense it is the most essential of the series.

Disk two contains tasty goodies, in this case four previously unavailable live tracks from this album. The tracks showcase how exuberant the band was live, featuring Messiah Marcolin screaming at the crowd to get into it between lyrics. Maybe it's because the music is super loud, but you can't hear all that much crowd reaction. This probably makes the listening experience more fun. So do Marcolin's intros to the songs in Swedish. He sounds like the Swedish Chef of metal. Fucking great.

You also get a 25-minute interview featuring bassist Leif Edling, Marcolin, and lead guitarist Lars Johansson. Here you get to hear Edling's really strange accent and stories like how Marcolin would buy two Big Macs every day, one to eat and one to put in his pocket for later; how the band would come up with strategies to get the workers at McDonalds to give them BBQ sauce without having to buy Chicken McNuggets; and how they were chased all over Athens by rabid Greek fans in what they call "Candlemass mania." Guaranteed laughs.