Cathedral - "The Serpents Gold"
(Earache MOSH 233)
Cathedral - "The Serpents Gold"
(Earache MOSH 233)
Uploaded to Aural Innovations: July 2004
Cathedral were a unique band that started out in the early 90’s as a slow sludge DOOM metal band. The band were great at constantly evolving their sound and production of their LPs. The band produced many great records. This is a 2½ hour compilation of the best of the Earache year releases. We don’t get any tracks from Statik Majick or Twilight Songs 7", but most all of their catalogue is represented. What is most interesting is the second CD of nearly all unreleased tracks. Imprisoned In Flesh from Ethereal Mirror was originally an instrumental that you get here as Hide And Seek. Next is the Demo for Neophytes For Serpent Eve. Heavy, slow stuff. Cool. Violet Breath is also an Ethereal Mirror outtake and very raw with psychedelic effected vocals but a great guitar riff! This is a different version of Night Of The Seagulls and I liked it better. It has some cool added stuff to make it more interesting. Magic Mountain is from '92 and probably the first example of a more rock and roll song that the band would produce on later albums but not this year. Great added touch with the flute soloing. A live version of Funeral Request with two members of Pentagram (Victor Griffin) is damn heavy! The Old Oake Tree, also an Ethereal Mirror outtake, has a rough vocal but is pretty much Candlemass like at times. The Schizoid Puppeteer you only heard if you got the Dark Passages II compilation CD, as this was an exclusive track and 12 minutes long. Now you can hear it. Wild wah guitar soloing on this one! Remember Witchfinder General? Well, the band did a cover version of Rabies. Cool. A rare live version of Blue Light from Japan is presented. Not the strongest song on the Carnival Bizarre record but cool to hear it. The bonus CD ends with a track from the bands second demo in 1991, Commiserating The Celebration Of Life. If you don’t own any Cathedral you must own this. If you have their back catalogue, this is a worthwhile purchase for the high quality of the bonus material.
For more information you can visit the Earache web site at: http://www.earache.com.
Reviewed by Scott Heller