Cathedral - Statik Majik (CDS, 1994)

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Cathedral - Statik Majik (CDS, 1994)

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Cathedral are some sort of the doom metal equivalent of Sigh, they write some of the most out there, bizarre and what-did-they-smoke-I-want-some type of music. They started out as a more or less usual doom metal band, but really, here, Statik Majik is their pinnacle of their now weird and fucked up style of (stoner) doom.

"Oh yeah! Oooeeewh, come on now!" Indeed I come, as the long ep - which is 40 minutes long - starts off with "Midnight Mountain" from their The Ethereal Mirror album. "Wooooaaahh, can you feel the groove? Grooving all night!" I too can feel it my dear Lee, your particular groovy stoner metal at display here as well as your vocals that sound as if you were on hallucinogens. It's a very fun song which has some very unusual riffing and drumming, making it almost danceable - Well Lee Dorian is sure to dance on it. There are even handclaps at some point, all sounds varied and trippy to say the least. Follows a lot of feedback from "Hypnos 164" and the trip continues. While still having some groovy moments, they're not as much as on the preceding song, here sounding similar to the rest of The Ethereal Mirror. Some parts sound a little more serious, a little like the more traditional doom found on their debut. Though it doesn't take much for the band to lose some seriousness, particularly when Lee introduce a riff with something like "boochie boochie aw aw aw!". The following "Cosmic Funeral" starts off rather seriously with slow doom metal riffs accompanied by some keyboards, plodding through the sadness of the chorus, going into further despair. Though as you would expect from Cathedral at that time, there's the imminent twist making them go further in stoner territory using some strange instrumentations, rhythms as well as prog-styled keys. So far it's some really entertaining and well put stoner doom, the most unique of its kind.

So the ep closes with the 22 minutes mammoth "Voyage of the Homeless Sapien". Holy funken shit! Now if everything before was trippy, this is the real acid trip, Alice in Wonderland style. Hell the whole song could be compared to that movie, going through some of the most bizarre arrangements, intermingling their usual stoner passages, groovy ones, doomy as well as even some huge and menacing old school death metal riffs, ones that you swear came off the masters of the genre. Both writers surely took the same foul stuff. It opens with a very tranquil mood, birds are singing, accompanied by acoustic guitars and a relaxed in his couch, strangely happy Lee Dorian singing. Then, there's this really heavy doom/death riff being played with some appropriate drumming, until it continues in a darker Forest of Equilibrium fashion. Some more peaceful moments briefly come back, then being interrupted with some almost death metal riffs, going through tons of different sounds while keeping the pace more or less down. There was even at some point, this fucking heavy, slower death metal riff being played, one that made me scratch my head as I was sure I heard it from some other band. Entombed? Or was it Asphyx? It mesmerized me so much, I did a quick survey over the latter's first two albums but to no avail. So after some other ballady moments and one strangely similar to what can be found on Sleep's Holy Mountain, the song ends on some church-like organ and some weird talk – sounds like Lee Dorian saying absurdities. It’s a rather weird track, some moments not being as good as others though you'll want to come back to it just because of some riffs.

Statik Majik is a really interesting ep. It's probably Cathedral biggest mindfuck, taking the most bizarre track of their sophomore coupled with some more or less similar ones, and with their biggest acid trip as a closer. It's not essential, though if you can't get enough of Cathedral and/or are interested in hearing some more of their most wacky songs, you'll definitely want to give this a listen.

~ by Evil_Johnny_666, www.metal-archives.com