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.

Read more »