For no good reason whatsoever, except for the fact that Cathedral are one of the best metal bands to have ever existed, we figured the time was right to rank the band’s albums from least godly to most godly. The doom metal legends put out 10 full-lengths, and comparing and ranking them turned out to be quite difficult, because there are at least three solid eras in the band’s sound, but even within those eras, the albums have a diverse mixture of sounds in their songs.
What I’m trying to say is this: even their “worst” album is much, much better than what most bands could ever hope to attempt. Cathedral created doom metal of a grand scale, and stopped along the way to explore boogie rock, prog, and what approximates to a battle-weary trad metal stomp, and this list is merely our way of saluting the fallen heroes.
Some ground rules: We’re looking at the 10 studio albums, so no EPs (although In Memorium is important, Soul Sacrifice is a classic and Static Majik is awesome), live albums, split singles, or anything like that. However, we wholeheartedly endorse you spending serious time with all this band’s recorded output, because there’s not a dud in the bunch.
So, without further yakkin’, let’s slide down the midnight mountain and rank Cathedral’s albums from worst to best.
10. Supernatural Birth Machine (1996)
I just never clicked with this album as much as the others from this era of the band; it’s not like the riffs aren’t there (they are: see “Birth Machine 2000”) but there’s a sort of feeling of exhaustion permeating all these songs, even if taken individually you bang the head and think, “Yeah, it’s Cathedral, it’s always good.” As an album, though, it’s a bit forgotten, and a bit less royal than their others, even the boogie rockers like “Fireball Demon” sounding a bit world-weary. I do love the epic closer “Magnetic Hole,” though.
9. The Garden of Unearthly Delights (2005)
Make no mistake, “North Berwick Witch Trials” rules, and this album is great midpoint between the glorious antagonism of Endtyme and the more upbeat Carnival Bizarre sounds. “Corpsecycle” has the band’s most uplifting melodies of any song they ever did, while “The Garden” is a goddamn 27-minute opus that finds Cathedral at their most progressive (and, I can only imagine, stoned, especially as things get groovy disco-licious as the song goes on), definitely setting the tone for the album that was to come next. There’s a lot going on here, mainly on “The Garden,” and while it’s mainly awesome, it’s always made it a bit harder to warm up to than most of their albums just because the psychological barrier of putting on a 27-minute song is pretty tough to overcome.
8. The VIIth Coming (2002)
“Skull Flower” has huge riffs for miles, the production is clean and crisp and lets everything shine, the mood is more triumphant after Endtyme’s glorious despair (or maybe I’m just being coloured by the cover’s hues). I like the jarring, happy groove of “Aphrodite Winter,” and “The Empty Mirror” bashes slow and hard, to much success. Meanwhile, “Nocturnal Fist” is one of the hardest-partying Cathedral songs since they invited us all to take a ride way back when. Then there’s “Black Robed Avenger,” with more excellent guitar work, which can also be said for late-album doomster “Congregation of Sorcerers,” with its Celtic Frost nods. A great album, but one that I don’t reach for as often as the ones occupying the top half of this list.
7. The Guessing Game (2010)
This is an odd one, the fact that it’s a double album only adding to its mystery, The Guessing Game generally referred to as “the prog album” in our mental organizing of Cathedral records but when you spin it, songs like “Painting in the Dark” or “Casket Chasers” are instead just sort of upbeat stoner rockers, the latter of those two being an album highlight, and one of the band’s most feel-good songs. “Death of an Anarchist” is the best non-Supergalactic Fantasmagoria sort of song title this band ever came up with, and the song itself rules too. The title track is pure prog, though, the band sounding more Gentle Giant than Grief, and I always enjoyed “Cats, Incense, Candles & Wine” because it’s completely insane, Cathedral just flying off the deep end into mellow ’70s territory. But there is much more straight-up rockin’ doom than we tend to think there is on this one, the band kicking back and relaxing hard this time around. The huge, near-10-minute animal-rights doomster “Requiem for the Voiceless” totally rules, and “The Running Man” is an amazing, retro-rock, doom-tinged trip. Very close to the next album on our list.
6. Caravan Beyond Redemption (1998)
Hard to not get this and Supernatural Birth Machine mushed together when cataloguing Cathedral albums in the brain when walking down the road, but Caravan has a bit more life to it, songs like the rockin’ “The Unnatural World” approaching Carnival Bizarre levels of post-Forest doom-rock glory, and “Captain Clegg” is the Cathedral shoulda-been classic from this era. “Kaleidoscope of Desire” is one of the most un-Cathedral Cathedral songs ever, and I think I like it; “The Omega Man” is slow as a slug but nowhere near Forest levels of heaviness, the band at this point keeping things pretty bright, even at their most dour. Except in the surprise-twist closer “Dust of Paradise,” which has their most Forest-y moments since the band’s classic debut.
5. The Carnival Bizarre (1995)
The band had settled into their second-era sound on their third album, The Carnival Bizarre delivering Sabbath master blasters (“Utopian Blaster”), Cathedral classic stompers (“Hopkins (The Witchfinder General)”), and slower doom-tinged cuts (“Palace of Fallen Majesty”). But it also showed the band getting weirder, getting more stoned, fully embracing the sounds of the ’70s that aren’t strictly Sabbath album three, such as “Blue Light” and “Fangalactic Supergoria,” which, incidentally, is one of the band’s greatest song titles ever, and they’ve got a lot of good ones. For this era, The Ethereal Mirror can’t be topped, but The Carnival Bizarre is riding a magic carpet right on its tail.
4. The Last Spire (2013)
I love The Last Spire, something about the band ending with a huge doom album 10 full-lengths after debuting with a huge doom album just creating this perfect circle of doom metal majesty. Songs like “An Observation” and “Pallbearer” are easily some of the band’s finest; how many bands can say that 10 records in? The addition of Scott Carlson on bass never hurt anyone, either. These songs are massive, crushing, slow-moving doom that puts aside the downright fun times the band explored on their previous couple albums for what feels like a funeral procession, but one we’re happy to attend: when a band has given the world 10 albums of this much perfect metal, with enough variety on them to provide interesting explorations for years to come, all you can do is raise a chalice and bang thy head as the corpse rocks on past, rockers frozen in time with a wink and a nod, beer in one hand and horns raised in the other, bell bottoms flaring, everything alright in the world.
3. Endtyme (2001)
Seriously: Endtyme is one of the greatest doom metal records ever. This album is so good I can barely even process how much I love it. “Requiem for the Sun” is incredible; “Ultra Earth” is boogie but still crusted over; “Alchemist of Sorrows” just rules. “Astral Queen” is a mellow, craggly trip, this band’s “Planet Caravan”; massive doom closer “Templar’s Arise! (The Return)” has another great song title, and also brings this album to an appropriately huge close, then an appropriately mellow close. Endtyme absolutely rules, apples versus oranges to the next album on our list, but even better depending on my mood. I feel lucky to have been alive when this album was released.
2. The Ethereal Mirror (1993)
It’s tough to separate this one from the pure confusion we all felt at the time: the slowest band in the world just released a boogie-rock single? I mean, I’m still in shock, but what’s even more surprising is just how much it actually makes sense, the songs on their second full-length never once losing the feeling of the songs on their significantly more dour debut. But it’s not like there’s not doom on the Decibel Hall of Fame-approved The Ethereal Mirror, it’s just sandwiched between the songs we all remember: “Midnight Mountain” and “Ride.” But tracks like “Enter the Worms” and “Fountain of Innocence” offer up a novel take on doom that, really, hasn’t been rivalled since this album dropped. And “Jaded Entity”? Forget about it. This is a classic.
1. Forest of Equilibrium (1991)
By no means do I mean to imply that it was all downhill for Cathedral after their debut, but Forest of Equilibrium is such a massive, huge monument of doom despair that, really, nothing could beat it (although, seriously, albums two and three on this list are nipping at its heels). Even eliminating the context of surprise that surrounded this when it came out—on Earache Records in 1991, not exactly a doom metal hotbed—Forest is just a phenomenal album, the riffs absolutely soul-crushing, statues to despair slowly crumbling to reveal even more statues to despair underneath them, Lee Dorrian’s vocals bringing the whole thing along to the number-one spot on this list that it rightly deserves to sit in. From “Ebony Tears”’ downtrodden beauty to “Soul Sacrifice”’s boogie (hinting at albums to come) and back to incredible, stately opener “Comiserating the Celebration,” this album is a doom classic, a Decibel Hall of Famer album for a reason. Doom metal perfection.
