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Cathedral, Anniversary: Once More into the Forest

Two full decades of doing anything is impressive, and what separates British doom mainstays Cathedral’s 20-year tenure from that of many others is that they never really stopped. Until now. The 2CD live album Anniversary – their first live record in all that time, released through frontman Lee Dorian’s own Rise Above Records (Metal Blade in North America) – captures a special show they did to mark 20 years on Dec. 3, 2010, at the 02 Academy Islington in London, and it’s part of the band tying up the loose ends of their existence, which they reportedly plan to end in 2012 with a final studio offering to be called The Last Spire and another London show Dec. 3, 2011. The Last Spire will be Cathedral’s 10th full-length, and though their catalog has had its ups and downs as far as fan reception, their stamp on the genre of doom is cast if only in the fact that when they started out, there was hardly a genre to speak of. As time passed and their catalog grew, landmark releases like 1993’s The Ethereal Mirror and 1995’s The Carnival Bizarre helped not only grow the band’s legacy, but that of doom at large, and through his work with Rise Above, Dorian in particular has been placed at the fore of tastemakers when it comes to what the term “doom” means and can be expanded to incorporate. That has little to do with the sound of Anniversary, but is relevant for context if nothing else.

The Anniversary show itself saw Cathedral basically play two concerts. The first, captured on the first disc here, brought back the original two-guitar lineup for a full front-to-back performance of their 1991 classic, Forest of Equilibrium. The second was Cathedral’s current incarnation – Dorian and guitarist Garry “Gaz” Jennings being the remaining founding members – doing a selection from the rest of the band’s discography. Disc one is an hour and disc two is just under 80 minutes, so the sheer amount of material on Anniversary is staggering, and for someone unfamiliar with the band, probably too intimidating to take on completely blind – but one doesn’t release something like Anniversary for the casual fan. Anniversary is for those who’ve stuck with the band through the highs and lows, or for the late comers whose appreciation for Cathedral is seen in the band’s influence on doom both British and worldwide. And as much as they’ve come to personify the band over the years, to hear Dorian and Jennings joined by guitarist Adam Lehan, bassist Mark Griffiths and drummer Mike Smail for a full run-through of Forest of Equilibrium is a fitting way to celebrate Cathedral’s time together, though the sound between the studio versions and their late-2010 live interpretations is more than a little different. Dorian’s vocals – though he’s obviously performed much of this material all along – have developed considerably since 1991, and though he’s always been more of a frontman than a technically-minded singer, his range and use of cleaner vocals can easily be heard progressing from album to album. Forest of Equilibrium was never going to be what it is on the record itself, but whether it’s “Commiserating the Celebration (of Life)” or the show highlights “Serpent Eve” and “Equilibrium,” Cathedral as They Were do the album justice and leave a high mark for Cathedral as They Are to live up to.

How much of a break was taken in between the sets at Islington Academy, I don’t know, but the band was smart to break them up on the resulting live album. The current Cathedral lineup of Dorian, Jennings, bassist/synthist Leo Smee (since replaced by Scott Carlson) and drummer Brian Dixon, who joined in 1994, offer 12 cuts from across the remaining Cathedral albums, focusing mostly on The Ethereal Mirror and The Carnival Bizarre, and completely excluding anything recorded between 1996-2005. That period covers the albums Supernatural Birth Machine (1996), Caravan Beyond Redemption (1998), Endtyme (2001) and The VIIth Coming (2002), which are widely regarded as where Cathedral most strayed from the doom that was their strength. Still, for an anniversary gig, to discount four of the total nine (to date) albums seems unfair, but I guess they wanted to give the fans what they wanted, and it’s easy to understand the arguments on that side as well. They do include tracks from 2005’s The Garden of Unearthly Delights – “Upon Azrael’s Wings” and the upbeat late highlight “Corpsecycle” – and 2010’s The Guessing Game, going so far as to open with a sped-up rendition of the proggy “Funeral of Dreams” from the latter that seems to give the song a completely new (and engaging) personality. “Funeral of Dreams” is the only inclusion from the two-disc The Guessing Game, and the rest is The Ethereal Mirror and The Carnival Bizarre, but for “Cosmic Funeral,” which comes from both 1994 EPs, Statik Majik and Cosmic Requiem, and “The Last Spire Pt. 1 (Entrance),” which one can only assume is the organ invocation that will begin the next album.

Those performances are as keyed in as one might expect from a band who knows it’s a special night, and the show boasts all the trappings of a Cathedral set. One can almost hear Dorian put the mic in his mouth and do the Frankenstein walk during “Night of Seagulls,” and the encore of “Vampire Sun” and – of course – “Hopkins (The Witchfinder General)” are as fitting a conclusion to such a massive undertaking as one could hope for. In a way, it’s astonishing that Cathedral could include so much in Anniversary and still leave out almost half of their work, but their focus on the positives of their career is nothing I’m about to hold against them, particularly as a fan of the band. Anniversary, again, is not for beginners. As novel as the idea of a full performance of Forest of Equilibrium is, it’s better heard by those with some level of familiarity with the original studio album. The second disc could actually serve as a decent primer for non-Forest Cathedral essentials, but the way Anniversary is packaged, you don’t get one without the other, and even that is more suited to the choir than those looking to be baptized. Still, as an exaltation of one of doom’s formative acts, Anniversary meets any expectation that could possibly be put on it, and shows Cathedral going into their (allegedly) final record with momentum worthy of their name.

Cathedral, “A Funeral Request” Live:

Cathedral on Thee Facebooks

Rise Above Records

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4 Responses to “Cathedral, Anniversary: Once More into the Forest”

  1. peter chrisp says:

    Received my copy last week, and the quality and sound of the disc is excellent. The first side is the “Forest” album which in a live sense is similar going to a “Funeral”, as the music takes you on a slow dirge, think of the dark ages a serial killer going to the gallows on his last rites, a slow death march, but gee it’s devastatingly heavy, and then we go to side two where some of the songs are more uptempo, and yet very powerful, and still retain that doom and gloom. As suggested above with their huge back catalog it is always
    a difficult proposition to include fan favorites and not include tracks from most of their classics, but gee if it is their last album, and one final
    studio album it’s a great way to bow out. Good stuff.

  2. Jordi says:

    How’s Lee’s voice sounding on this record? Still the heavy growl, specially for “Forest” tracks?

  3. Sam says:

    Got mixed feelings regarding this release; while I realize “Forest” is considered their seminal straight-doom album, I actually think “Ethereal” is more important as a cornerstone for everything doom covers these days. So I would’ve preferred to see that one given the full-album treatment. “Forest” reprised is however an energetic and enjoyable performance.

    Disc 2 is a problem. As already mentioned, they leave out 4 albums. I’ve got a bone to pick with the reviewer, by the way: while “Supernatural” and “Caravan” are the band’s lowest, least doomy points, “Endtyme” is second is heaviness only to “Forest”; it was a resounding return to form. And “VIIth Coming” is an awesome mix of doom, swing, and psychedelia that really saw Cathedral finding a balance between everything they do, one they’ve maintained on their most recent releases. Its really disappointing that they didn’t represent that mid-period; hell, even “Supernatural” and “Caravan” have a few monster tracks on them.

    “Ethereal” and to a lesser degree, “Carnival” are great albums, but they shouldn’t have been SO heavily weighted in a show that may well be the only official live release we ever get out of this band. Also the guitar sounds way muddy, almost sloppy, on disc 2, which is a bummer. On the whole, as a hardcore fan of this band, I’m a underwhelmed by this release. Its not awful, but I was hoping for more.

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