:: Cathedral - The Guessing Game

Cathedral

Given their return to form with their last couple of releases, it’s not surprising to find many followers of the legendary and hugely influential stoner/doom metal act Cathedral have big expectations for their latest release ‘The Guessing Game’. And as predicted, Cathedral duly delivers the goods on their ninth full-length effort. Perhaps making up for the lengthy gap between releases, Cathedral have decided to produce a double album this time around, with ‘The Guessing Game’ more than living up to its name in terms of pinning down any one particular genre that best sums up the feel of what’s on offer throughout the album’s thirteen tracks. The opening instrumental piece ‘Immaculate Misconception’ is a thundering mix of pounding riffs, darker sounding strings and huge organ sounds, which gives the album a solid footing to rest upon, and sets up the follow up track ‘Funeral Of Dreams’ perfectly. It’s here that the band really show just how eclectic their batch of new material is, with the epic number combined with dooming Black Sabbath riffs and a notably psychedelic influence mashed together to make for a very strange, but totally agreeable mash of sound. ‘Painting In The Dark’ is pretty much a straight-forward rocking effort that is one of the album’s real stand out tracks with its grooving guitar riffs and effects, while the slower paced retro feel of ‘Death Of An Anarchist’ and ‘Edwige’s Eyes’ prove that Cathedral still revel in heavy doom-like atmospherics. The instrumental title track ‘The Guessing Game’ is a quirky piece of vintage progressive rock with the mellotron and wind instruments dominating within the track, while the first disc’s closer ‘Cats, Incense, Candles & Wine’ further pushes the ‘70’s influence progressive rock sound even further, before finishing up in a totally funk rock like fashion. Disc two is once again opened with an instrumental, with the rather heavy ‘One Dimensional People’ laying down a more metallic sounding template, which is carried through most of the second half of the album. The fast paced heavy riffing duo of ‘The Casket Chasers’ and ‘La Noche Del Buque Maldito (AKA Ghost Ship Of The Blind Dead)’ are definite early favourites on the second disc with their rocking straight-forward approach and delivery, while experimental progression is well and truly evident in the rather lengthy ‘The Running Man’. Cathedral faithful will no doubt embrace the animal rights themed ‘Requiem For The Voiceless’ for its voyage into pure heavy doom metal territory, while the closing number ‘Journeys Into Jade’ (Barring the uncredited short minute long spoken word piece after a period of silence) will undoubtedly see many fans rocking out toward the tail end of the album, with Dorrian’s lyrics celebrating the band’s twenty years together, without overindulging in too much reflection, or sounding too cheesy in the process. Double albums rarely work, especially in this day and age. But somehow, Cathedral manage to make ‘The Guessing Game’ work. While ‘The Guessing Game’ doesn’t quite eclipse the brilliance of ‘The Garden Of Unearthly Delights’, Cathedral’s latest effort is still a great (double) album, and worth the long and strange journey that awaits those willing to enter Cathedral’s guessing game.