Tracklist: Vampire sun Hopkins (the witchfinder general) Utopian blaster Night of the seagulls Carnival bizarre Inertias cave Fangalactic supergoria Blue light Palace of fallen majesty Electric grave

Band members: Lee Dorrian - Vocals Garry Jennings - Guitars Leo Smee - Bass guitar Brian Dixon - Drums

Rating:
Cathedral is a relatively new band for me, I remember them doing a tune on the first Sabbath tribute album but otherwise, I haven't heard anything about or from them. Anyhow, recently I heard this album of theirs and I was stunned. Like their countrymen and contemporaries, Paradise Lost, Cathedral is from the mother country of most great music, England, and back in the early 90's they played the boring embryonic (and crappy) kind of death metal which was very popular around then.
However, on this album (dunno much about their earlier albums) they're very influenced by 70's Black Sabbath and some progressive bands cause this basically sounds like Sabbath music, just add some mellotron, keyboards and a bit of 90's metal sound and you're there. In a few words this sounds as if old Black Sabbath would reunite and begin to play 90's metal. So no talk about any kind of rip-off here. Dorrian's voice is kind of unique though, I've never heard anything alike it. It's not really clean at all (well sometimes it is), kind of distorted, like if he's progressed from a real death metal growl (although I know he actually has), the vocals fits like a glove to the whole thing anyway.
No really bad tracks here, a very solid album which every fan of metal should own.
Fun facts: Tony Iommi plays guitar on "Utopian blaster".







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