| CD REVIEW Cathedral |
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Band : Cathedral Cathedral has always been somewhat of an enigma and some people hesitate to call them doom at all, fans and especially reviewers have been forced to try and think of new genre names just to classify these guys. Lee Dorrian & Co have experienced with a lot of genres throughout the band's history. They are definitely a quartet hard to pinpoint style-wise. These guys have been doing things very, very right for the past two or three albums, and their ninth album The Guessing Game is merely a continuation of this band’s greatness. With an open mind and an uncanny sense for progress and originality, one can do great things. For this particular album the band is definitely in sludge mode, but add a lot of psych, 70s Canterbury prog, folk, thrash and punk elements with great success and in a way that isn't typical at all. The band is experimenting with liberal use of mellotrons, sitar and flute. Production wise, everything is very open and vast - the guitars sound gritty and have that gloom crunch to them, the drumming sounds great and the slow-fast parts are all very secure and bottom heavy behind the kit. Not only is the sound unique, but the writing is tasteful, never overblown and epic only when needed. A little vocal refinement and maybe a little more memo ability in general would be nice, but as it stands The Guessing Game is a hell of a moody, psych doom metal monster. 90/100 Cosmicmasseur. |