Cathedral
The Ethereal Mirror

THE REVIEW

In 1991, Cathedral debuted with "Forest of Equilibrium," the quintessential doom metal album, one of the heaviest and most oppressive works humanity has ever produced. Exasperating tempos, guitars like boulders upon us, and a cavernous voice at the limits of existential exhaustion. The cheeks of Lee Dorrian, weak and desolate, on the white marble cross.

Continuing down this path would have been unsustainable, both for those playing and for those listening. And so in 1993, the group decided to give themselves a shake, as it is proper when one has reached a limit and understands that continuing to skirt that limit would become a slow drift into sterile mannerism. A necessary step, artistically inevitable, which on one hand, as always happens, loses the undeniable charm that the extreme brings with it, but on the other gives us a band in dazzling form, gleaming with renewed compositional freshness, and which courageously decides to cross the dark boundaries of doom and open towards new musical horizons.

And even if the cauldron from which the band decides to draw is still rigorously seventies, in this "The Ethereal Mirror" they don't just celebrate the overwhelming feats of Iommi and company (an indispensable point of reference). In "The Ethereal Mirror," we can encounter acidic sounds, psychedelic visions, progressive moments (considering the unpredictable evolutions of certain compositions), all elements that marry enchantingly with the crusher riffs of Garry Jennings and the hallucinating scenarios illustrated by the dark singer Dorrian. With elephantine steps, Cathedral thus venture into the colorful world of psychedelia, losing a bit of their peculiar heaviness but remaining widely lethal to our neurons, as if the mountain that had crushed us until a moment ago had now melted and flooded us with vibrant fluorescent jam. As if the dark mammoth of old was now being repainted anew by jolly hippies in the grip of lysergic visions.

The liquid notes of "Violet Vortex" open up to the new dimension of the Cathedral, but immediately reverend Jennings, like a dubious pied piper, blesses us with a majestic riff, an irresistible call for us doom-addicted rats. But it's just the beginning: it's the opener "Ride" that puts everyone in line, assaulting us with that "vam va vam va vam va vam" which will become the signature riff of the band's future production, increasingly oriented towards a granitic rock carnival. A crazy circus of freaks and assorted monstrosities, the world of Cathedral, where the guitars thrash and Dorrian's rasping voice, completely at ease in his new guise as a gritty seventies bad boy (oyeahhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!), scratches with energy, yet without losing the theatrical and visionary air, that taste for excess and the grotesque, that irony mixed with agony, that place Dorrian himself among the most charismatic and original figures on the scene.

Tracks with irresistible groove like this one or like the ultra-classic "Midnight Mountain" will alternate with suffocating reminiscences of the past, coming and going throughout the platter's duration: "Enter the Worms", "Grim Luxuria", "Jaded Entity", "Ashes You Leave" bring us back to the desolate landscapes of the first indomitable album, although it is now clear that Cathedral's doom is no longer calibrated to probe the darkest recesses of the soul, but to envelop the listener in a celestial and lilac muck, a sort of sticky and sugary blob with stunning and stoned effects.
But that's not all: in the seven minutes of "Fountain of Innocence", a visionary semi-ballad enhanced by Dorrian's effected vocals, the group reveals their hand and their love (never concealed anyway) for certain fairytale-like and decadent atmospheres inherited from the seventies-made progressive tradition. In the central refrain, a Dorrian so clean materializes that we struggle to recognize him (much less imagine him as the protagonist of the grindcore revolution carried out a few years back with Napalm Death!).

But uncompromising doom enthusiasts can rest assured, because the almost nine minutes of "Phantasmagoria", written and performed under the influence of acids (according to the involved parties), take us back to the atrocities of their origins (just think of the initial crude scream): continuous tempo changes, riffs ground without interruption, the maximum expression of doom in a state of disintegration. To conclude everything, less than two minutes of "Imprisoned in Flesh", a soft acoustic lullaby where a sweet whispering Dorrian (???) closes this jewel of electrified madness mockingly.

From the subsequent "The Carnival Bizarre", Dorrian and Jennings, bolstered by a renewed and cohesive lineup, will be better able to focus their ideas, settling on a sound that's more catchy and mature, if you will, but alas more predictable.

Clarifying from the start the intrinsic insurmountability of a work like "Forest of Equilibrium" and the formal balance of the just mentioned "The Carnival Bizarre", this "The Ethereal Mirror" remains in my opinion the brightest and most grotesque diamond of the Englishmen's career, a fantastic labyrinth which will be a pleasure to get lost in for all those who continue to have a soft spot for that unforgettable season of rock that runs from '67 to '73, a happy island saturated with rosy expectations, until Brian Eno, that ogre, came to take it all away from us, dishes, heart, and sweat!