Malta Metal Weekend: Anchorite, Anvil and Candlemass — Three Generations of Heavy Metal
The second edition of Malta Metal Weekend will bring three days of heavy metal to Malta from 13 to 15 November 2026, with the Eden Arena in St Julian’s becoming the setting for a weekend featuring thirteen bands from Malta and abroad. Following the successful inaugural edition in 2025, the festival returns with a bill covering several generations and styles of metal, from extreme and melodic metal to classic heavy metal and doom.
Among the first bands taking the stage on Saturday, 14 November, are three names that, despite coming from very different backgrounds, share a deep connection with traditional heavy metal: Anchorite, Anvil and Candlemass.
For this instalment of our Malta Metal Weekend series, we take a closer look at these three bands and what they bring to the second day of the festival.
Anchorite — An International Band with a Maltese Beginning
It is perhaps fitting that the first band we examine is also the one with the strongest Maltese connection.
Anchorite came into existence in late 2018, following a meeting between Leo Stivala, best known as the vocalist of Maltese doom veterans Forsaken, and Swedish bassist Peter Svensson at the Malta Doom Metal Festival. The pair decided to form a band around their shared love of epic doom, eventually bringing in drummer Marcus Rosenkvist and Danish guitarist Martin Jepsen Andersen.
The result was Further from Eternity, released in 2020, an album firmly rooted in the traditions of Candlemass, Solitude Aeturnus and Manilla Road. The band's international character is part of what makes Anchorite particularly appropriate for Malta Metal Weekend: although the musicians come from different countries, the group's origins are firmly tied to Malta's doom-metal community.
The band subsequently returned with Realm of Ruin in 2025, and this is where Anchorite have really begun to establish an identity of their own.
The album contains eight substantial tracks and embraces the slow, monumental side of doom while allowing traditional heavy metal and even faster passages into the formula. The official Malta Metal Weekend biography describes it as "maniacal doom for doom metal maniacs", pointing towards the band's influences while emphasising the dual-harmony guitar work and traditional-metal gallops that distinguish them from a straightforward Candlemass imitation.
There is also some impressive history attached to the album. Realm of Ruin features a guest appearance from Michael Denner, legendary guitarist of Mercyful Fate, while the band's debut included Valhalla Awaits, a tribute to the late Manilla Road frontman Mark "The Shark" Shelton featuring former Manilla Road members Randy Foxe and Bryan Patrick.
Reviews of Realm of Ruin have been enthusiastic, although not universally so. Angry Metal Guy praised the band's ability to combine Candlemass, Solitude Aeturnus and other epic-doom influences with a more muscular traditional-metal attack, awarding it 3.5/5 and highlighting "The Apostate's Prayer" and "Kingdom Undone".
Metal Archives contains an even more enthusiastic 100% review, praising the memorable choruses, guitar work and Leo Stivala's vocals, while another reviewer gave the album 80%, describing it as a mature and serious epic-doom record but noting that some of its longer, slower passages can test the listener's patience.
Metal Hammer was similarly positive about the band's development, giving the album 4.5/7 and noting that Anchorite have moved beyond their influences sufficiently to incorporate traditional heavy metal, stoner elements and other colours into their sound.
For Malta, however, Anchorite represent something more than another international doom act. Their story actually began here — and on 14 November they bring that story onto one of the biggest metal stages Malta has hosted.
Anvil — Forty Years of Refusing to Give Up
If Anchorite represent the continuing evolution of traditional doom, Anvil represent something equally important: persistence.
Formed in Toronto, Canada, Anvil have spent more than four decades playing heavy metal on their own terms. At the centre of the story are founding members Steve "Lips" Kudlow and drummer Robb Reiner, alongside bassist Chris Robertson.
Anvil's early records — particularly Metal on Metal and Forged in Fire — established them as one of the important Canadian metal bands of the early 1980s. Their influence subsequently reached artists who would become considerably more commercially successful, including members of Metallica and Slayer. The Malta Metal Weekend organisers describe Anvil as one of the most influential bands in metal history.
The irony is that Anvil never received the commercial breakthrough many believed was coming.
Their story became widely known through the 2008 documentary Anvil! The Story of Anvil, which documented the band's extraordinary persistence in continuing to tour, record and pursue recognition despite years of setbacks. The documentary transformed Anvil's story into something larger than a conventional heavy-metal biography: it became a story about friendship, ambition, disappointment and refusing to surrender.
And they are still doing it.
Their latest studio album, One And Only, is their twentieth full-length. Released in 2024, it deliberately looks backwards rather than attempting to modernise Anvil's sound. The band themselves described the record as returning to their older, more straightforward identity after the experiments of the 1990s.
Reviews were mixed, but perhaps revealingly so.
The Metal Crypt awarded One And Only 4/5, praising its crunchy, melodic and uncomplicated old-school heavy metal and describing it as another strong — if somewhat safe — Anvil record.
Other reviewers were less convinced. A 3.5/5 review argued that the album was a step down from Impact Is Imminent and Legal at Last, while acknowledging that Anvil's formula remains effective.
And that formula is precisely the point.
Anvil have never been interested in reinventing themselves every few years. Their appeal lies in riffs, volume, attitude and enthusiasm. One review compared their consistency to AC/DC: you know what you are getting, but there is something reassuring about a band that continues to do it with conviction.
On 14 November, Malta gets the opportunity to witness that persistence first-hand.
Candlemass — When Doom Became Epic
And then there is Candlemass.
If Anvil represent the perseverance of traditional heavy metal, Candlemass represent something arguably even more significant: the transformation of doom into an entire musical language.
Formed in Sweden in the mid-1980s around bassist and principal songwriter Leif Edling, Candlemass took the slow, dark foundations laid by Black Sabbath and expanded them into something more dramatic, melodic and grandiose. The result became known as epic doom metal. The Malta Metal Weekend biography rightly places the band alongside Black Sabbath as one of the definitive architects of the genre.
Their 1986 debut, Epicus Doomicus Metallicus, remains the cornerstone.
With Johan Längquist on vocals, the album contained classics such as "Solitude", "Demon's Gate", "Under the Oak" and "A Sorcerer's Pledge". It was followed in 1987 by Nightfall, which introduced the legendary Messiah Marcolin and the classic Candlemass lineup.
The difference was transformative.
Längquist brought an almost vulnerable melancholy to Epicus. Marcolin turned the music into theatre — his operatic delivery, enormous vibrato and unmistakable stage presence becoming inseparable from the Candlemass identity.
The band's classic run continued with Ancient Dreams and Tales of Creation, establishing a catalogue that remains central to doom metal more than three decades later.
Yet Candlemass have never simply lived in the past.
After numerous lineup changes, breakups and reunions, Längquist returned in 2018, leading to The Door to Doom in 2019. The album generated enormous attention because Tony Iommi, the guitarist of Black Sabbath, appeared on "Astorolus – The Great Octopus". The symbolism was almost perfect: the man who helped create heavy metal's original doom language appearing on an album by the band that transformed that language into epic doom.
The album was well received, with Metal Hammer describing it as a "masterclass in epic metal", while other reviews praised the combination of old-school songwriting and renewed energy.
Their 2022 album Sweet Evil Sun continued the Längquist era. Reviews were more divided: some praised the band's continued ability to produce convincing doom, while others felt that the formula was becoming increasingly familiar. That criticism, however, is hardly unusual for a band whose musical identity has been so firmly established.
Candlemass also marked their four-decade history with the 2025 Black Star EP, containing two new songs alongside covers of Black Sabbath's "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath" and Pentagram's "Forever My Queen". Reviews ranged from enthusiastic to lukewarm, but the release reinforced the band's continuing commitment to the musical tradition they helped establish.
And that is why Candlemass are such an important part of this particular Saturday.
Anchorite draw inspiration from them.
Anvil represent another branch of the same traditional-metal family tree.
Candlemass are one of the bands that helped create the tree in the first place.
Three generations of heavy metal — one Saturday
What makes these three acts particularly interesting as a group is the journey they represent.
Anchorite are the modern generation, taking epic doom's traditional ingredients and giving them their own international identity, with a very real Maltese connection.
Anvil are the survivors — a band that helped shape early-1980s metal, endured decades of setbacks and continues to tour and record with the same enthusiasm.
And Candlemass are the architects: a band whose Epicus Doomicus Metallicus helped define an entire branch of metal and whose influence can still be heard in bands such as Anchorite today.
They are therefore more than three names on a festival poster.
They are three chapters in the continuing story of heavy metal.
And on Saturday, 14 November 2026, all three will be part of the second Malta Metal Weekend, alongside Doro and Dirkschneider. The festival itself runs from 13–15 November, bringing thirteen bands across three nights to Malta.
Get your tickets
Single-day tickets and three-day block tickets are available, allowing fans either to concentrate on their preferred night or experience the entire weekend.
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