Cathedral – The Last Spire (Rise Above Records)
Massively heavy influential British doom metal: this is their farewell album, conceiving the songs as a sort of funeral oration for .the band. Hailing from Coventry, only 20 miles away from Sabbath’s hometown of Birmingham, a few decades later they basically turned their guitars even lower and played even slower. They haven’t played it quite this slow since their classic 1989 debut Forest of Equilibrium.
RIYL Candlemass, Sleep, Eagle Twin, Reverend Bizarre
FCCs on 4

1. (6:53) Rolling, murky dirge, sounds like standard fare for these blokes
2. (11:39)** YES! Slowwww, sludgy, despairing, some cool parts with choral vox and synthesized trombone/tuba. A chill acoustic bridge transitions into the more upbeat 70s doom-rock, cheesy and ebullient like only Cathedral can do. Epic like it’s 1989 baby!
3. (3:07) looping dirge of whispered groans and echoes, guitar feedback, perfect transition into…
4. (5:48) Dark, crushing, anthemic. Black Sabbath had “Black Sabbath”, Pentagram had that one song where he says “pentagram”, so is this Cathedral’s eponymous anthem? Fuck yeah.
5. (8:47) straightforward slow dirge, monolithic 4/4 march reminiscent of Candlemass, takes a similar balls-out-rock-via-spacey-interlude route but doesn’t pack the punch track 2 does
6. (10:20)***WHOA! Super menacing and funereal vibes, baroque organ and cello accompaniment gives it a despairing gothic feel, like an abandoned, um… cathedral. Midway through, jaunty Moog arpeggios drift into jazzed-up 70s krautrock/prog territory before finishing on some crunchy riff onslaughts.
7. (0:38) half a minute of freakish laughs, screams, samples
8 (9:02) murderous marching doom, an odd guitar/bass major-key bridge and solos for every instrument before returning to the refrain. Acoustic guitar crescendos, drones out with the last of the fuzz. Talk about going out with a bang!