In Memoriam - Cathedral

...of the most underrated bands in metal history, and it’s time someone redressed the balance. Their new album, Endtyme, is being released on the 26th of February, and so I have decided to review their entire back catalogue before then. Cathedral began life way back in 1990 when vocalist Lee Dorrian left death metal legends Napalm Death behind him. Him new band, Cathedral, couldn’t have been more of a departure.

Their first ...
...time. Cathedral played doom metal, in the vein of Saint Vitus, but much slower and heavier. This was certainly the heaviest music being released at the time. Since then, this EP has been re-released with four live tracks.

This very early material is thoroughly unpolished, but has a strange charm all of its own. The riffs are fairly standard stuff, relying on growling, down tuned guitars rumbling away to make an impression. The guitar ... more

Cathedral are one of the most underrated bands in metal history, and it’s time someone redressed the balance. Their new album, Endtyme, is being released on the 26th of February, and so I have decided to review their entire back catalogue before then. Cathedral began life way back in 1990 when vocalist Lee Dorrian left death metal legends Napalm Death behind him. Him new band, Cathedral, couldn’t have been more of a departure.

Their first release was an EP called In Memoriam, and it was pretty groundbreaking stuff for its time. Cathedral played doom metal, in the vein of Saint Vitus, but much slower and heavier. This was certainly the heaviest music being released at the time. Since then, this EP has been re-released with four live tracks.

This very early material is thoroughly unpolished, but has a strange charm all of its own. The riffs are fairly standard stuff, relying on growling, down tuned guitars rumbling away to make an impression. The guitar tone is one of the triumphs of this album, being perfectly audible, but stunningly heavy. The production muddies the recording a bit, and the drums are frequently too quiet. The vocals are supplied by Lee Dorrian and hark back to his Napalm Death days. He growls like a wild thing, but manages to keep the mournful atmosphere intact.

The opening track, Mourning of a New Day, is a molasses thick, plodding beast of a song, picking up the pace at the end in a manner reminiscent of Black Sabbath. The second track is the best on the album – All Your Sins relies on one very strong, mid paced riff (somewhat reminiscent, bizarrely of Cars by Gary Numan!). Also, some lead guitar softens the crushing rhythm to good effect, with the guitar work of Gary Jennings evoking the sound of Led Zeppelin, which sounds awesome next to the weight of their dark, miserable songs. The solo however, has none of the lightness of the interludes, using bending notes to goods effect to give it a dark, mystical feel reminding me of Trouble at their best.

The bass intro to Ebony Tears gradually builds to a crescendo of roaring guitars, and a roaring Lee Dorrian! The song follows a similar pattern to the rest of the material – metal of the darkest, doomiest order. The guitars are a little less rumbling in this song, but the fact remains that this is still an awesomely heavy song. Lee Dorrians growling is a little less throaty too, but still almost incoherent. The pace does occasionally pick up, but never to more than the speed of a dirge. The lead guitar in this song is wonderfully melancholy, and the tag doom metal never seemed to fit any band as well as it did Cathedral.

March is an excellent military themed instrumental, similar to the marches that classical composers would write, with a military tattoo playing in the background, but the composition is one of swirling distorted guitars and rumbling bass. An interesting experiment which works brilliantly to close the recording, holding the interest all the way through by using numerous changes in the pattern, but always revolving around the same merciless drumbeat, marking out the steps of some army of the damned.

The live material is a mixture of songs from this EP and from their first full length album, released a year later. They are sadly, rather uninspired. Cathedral lacked energy live at this stage in their careers, although they have since matured into one of the finest live metal bands around. Overall the live tracks are sloppy and unexciting, but the material on the EP is pretty good.

Nonetheless, it is very heavy, and very extreme. If you like music fast paced or happy, I would avoid this like the plague. Generally speaking, this is more interesting to fans of the band as a slice of history before they reached their prime. It is good, but very inaccessible and occasionally can lapse into the boring – all of the songs are very long indeed. But this was the EP which launched the doom legend which was to change the face of metal music. Their full length follow up to this album, Forest of Equilibrium, was to appear a year later, and reach a much wider audience.

 

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