OFF: Cathedral

[Carl Edlund Anderson]

On fre 15 jan 1999 11.12 +0000 andrew <andrew at DELUMINATE.FREESERVE.CO.UK>
wrote:
> oh yeah, orange goblin are comin here at the end of the month supporting
> cathedral. now sure, of course i'm off to see the goblin ones, but know
> nothing of cathedral, anyone know anything of them?

     Yer basic 3-piece plus singer, unashamedly 70s Sabbathoid riffing,
and walk a wobbly line between self-conscious epic rock pomposity
and self-conscious cheeeez extravaganza.  Singer is ex-Napalm Death,
so the vocals are on the grindy side, but he's singing cleaner than
ever before, I think.  The guitarist is very good and delivers
some first-rate riffs (and has a _marvelous_ tone), while the singer
is a superb frontman.  Rhythm section is pretty damn solid.
     It took a while before the current line-up stabilized, but
they've done three albums together now, IMO easily Cathedral's
best work (though of course, many like their older, slow death/doom
approach and complain they've "sold out" now :)

     I saw them once before when I was not terribly taken with
the studio recordings, but was _deeply_ impressed with the live
performance.  I've a friend who says Cathedral have _sucked_
whenever he's seen them as support, but have _rocked_ whenever
he's seen them headline ... so it should be all right :)

     Combination with Orange Goblin should be an ideal gig,
for both, really.

Cheers,
Carl

--
Carl Edlund Anderson
Dept. of Anglo-Saxon, Norse, & Celtic
St. John's College, University of Cambridge
mailto:cea20 at cus.cam.ac.uk
http://hea-www.harvard.edu/~carl/