Cathedral - The Ethereal Mirror (1993) (UK 1st Press + Limited Remastered Edition CD/EP/DVD)

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Cathedral - The Ethereal Mirror (1993) (UK 1st Press + Limited Remastered Edition CD/EP/DVD)

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In a more commercial direction than the previous "Forest of Equilibrium" album, "The Ethereal Mirror" is still a great recording. The mood is definitely lighter and brighter for the most part, especially on the first half of the album which in the Age of Vinyl would have been called the A-side where songs slated to be singles usually went, but even on the second half of the album where the music gets more ponderous there are still touches of humour here and there, particularly in Lee Dorrian's singing. Still moving away from the Napalm Death-era grunting and growling, Dorrian sometimes appears to be hunting for a vocal style that suits his voice, his often lurid lyrics and the powerful music which all too often (and maybe rightly so) threatens to overpower him so he has to shout rather than sing to be heard and this tends to make him come over as a hammy showman.

"Violet Vortex" is a surprisingly varied intro at just under 2 minutes with a hazy wobbly guitar cloud that becomes a thundering series of riffs of which you could count at least three sets each deserving an entire song. Compared to this, "Ride" initially sounds a bit ordinary and underdone but locks into its groove quickly and turns out to be a neat and tight (but not too tight) radio-friendly rock-out. The following track "Enter the Worms" is the best of this first half of the album: it has a real retro-Seventies psychedelic metal vibe, a meaty sound and a sinuous flow and Dorrian's singing is probably at its best here, he leers and tastes every word no matter how repulsive or ridiculous the lyrics may be. At once malevolent and seductive, this is a great highlight which sets the band up for, um, "Midnight Mountain", the album's ridiculous moment from its previous sublime: the band's sound and style of lyrics are ill-suited for performing poppy songs with hand-clapping choruses but at the time the album was being recorded (early 1990s), Cathedral were in the process of being signed up to Columbia Records and the guys had to impress the label with something the bean counters employed there could understand and relate to so, ergo, we must have "Midnight Mountain".

"Fountain of Innocence" fulfils the obligatory ballad-type song requirement with acoustic guitar passages and some clean vocals from Dorrian; from then on, the band lets loose with what it did best in those days: huge chunky songs of pounding rhythms and thunderous riffs sometimes highlighted with delicate melodies. Songs like "Grim Luxuria" and "Jaded Entity" mix no-nonsense powerhouse guitar chords with runaway lightning lead guitar and Dorrian veering perilously close to hammy performances. "Jaded Entity" has the edge over "Grim Luxuria" in its second half where surging bass-heavy riffs go hell for leather broke and start mixing up speeds. After that, "Ashes You Leave" loses momentum slightly in its awkward manner, the singing and the music a bit mismatched and not quite jelling together despite the searing guitar blast introduction; the song later improves when Gary Jennings takes his turn on lead guitar and the music speeds up, introducing new riffs almost right up to the end.

The plod factor returns with the lumbering "Phantasmagoria" which is almost a return to "Forest of Equilibrium"-period Cathedral with that wonderful haunted guitar intro that features a screaming fall into Hell. Dorrian almost ruins the funereal atmosphere with his overwrought histrionics, otherwise this song by sheer force of thunder and the power of its almighty riffs could well have been the best song on the album. As with previous songs, new riffs appear up to the fade-out end.

The album finishes up on a delicate acoustic note with "Imprisoned in Flesh", featuring some decent restrained singing from Dorrian with a gruff sting in its tail: a clever way to finish off a monumental recording that can leave you exhausted and overcome by those pounding rhythms yet at the same time wanting more of those powerful booming riffs that fall from Jennings and Adam Lehan's fingers on the fretboards throughout most songs. The band's sound on this album is steely and menacing, especially in the instrumental parts of "Grim Luxuria" and "Jaded Entity" and is less thick and crusty than on the debut album. At the same time, if you listen closely the guitars can be scratchy as if they're about to fall about from over-use but this adds an endearing quality to the band's music: you know it's not too efficient and streamlined and buffed-up and the guys have an easy-going attitude to what they do. This was one of the things I like about the band and this record, that the guys could perform such jaw-droppingly powerful music with such a carefree and breezy attitude.

While I sometimes wish Cathedral could have done on this second album more of what they did on "Forest of Equilibrium", this probably would have locked the band into a narrow groove and the expectation among their fans would be that the third and later albums should conform to the same narrow template. Obviously there are people who expect that of their favourite bands and some of these bands are happy to keep pumping out the same old tunes but Cathedral have not been one of these even though at times they may be inconsistent and the quality of their music has varied over the years. I followed the band up to and including their fourth album "Supernatural Birth Machine" (I had the special digipak edition with Dave Patchett's artwork and the silly comic) and then thought, well, they are past their best and I don't want to get disappointed so I stopped buying their music.

After "The Ethereal Mirror" was released, Cathedral did get signed up Columbia Records and there followed a period in which the band tested the label's patience with releases like the "Statik Majik" EP, featuring a gloriously messy 20-minute-plus meandering track at the end of which Dorrian "meanders" out of the studio and into a bathroom where he flushes a toilet. This and other pranks eventually got the band thrown off the label (I'm thankful for that) and back to England minus some members but to their credit the band survived and moreover got at long last a stable line-up which has stayed the same to the present day.

~ NausikaDalazBlindaz, www.metal-archives.com

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Cathedral - The Ethereal Mirror (1993) (UK 1st Press + Limited Remastered Edition CD/EP/DVD)

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Cathedral - The Ethereal Mirror (1993) (UK 1st Press + Limited Remastered Edition CD/EP/DVD)

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