Ancient Dreams

Ancient Dreams is the third studio album by Swedish doom metal pioneers Candlemass, released on November 23, 1988. Following the success of their landmark early releases, this album represents a key moment in the band's classic era, featuring the iconic operatic vocals of Messiah Marcolin. The album's cover art features 'Youth', the second painting in Thomas Cole's famous allegorical series 'The Voyage of Life', matching the grand, historical scale of the music. Notably, Ancient Dreams was the first Candlemass album to chart in the United States, peaking at No. 174 on the Billboard 200. The tracklist features interesting cultural crossovers, including 'Epistle No. 81', a heavy metal adaptation of a work by the 18th-century Swedish poet and musician Carl Michael Bellman, and 'Incarnation of Evil', which was reworked from an old track by bassist Leif Edling's pre-Candlemass band, Nemesis. Despite its commercial success and beloved status among fans, the band members were famously unhappy with the final mix, attributing its rushed production to pressure from their record label to release the LP in time for their upcoming US tour.