First off, I haven’t ditched the crusade, but I am listening to a box set. 7 discs takes about 7 days listening time. This is right in the middle of it and tomorrow I’ll be doing a normal review as well, but for now onto Cathedral.
I know its bad practise to just anything by its cover so before I listen to any of the music I’m going to do exactly that. It is a double with roughly fourty minutes of music on each disc, perfectly suited to the double LP format. The title is ambiguous but has a distinctly childish quality to it. The artwork is picture book in tone and even the font has an earthy folky tone to it. One disc has seven tracks on it, the other a mere six. I’m just going to tell you what I should know is a STUPID assumption given I got this from Storm. I am expecting the missing Uriah Heep album recorded somewhere between Demons and Wizards and The Magician’s Birthday, featuring every member of Yes, past and present, or at least their sound emulated entirely through the use of Robert Fripp’s guitar effects, regardless of what instrument they played and finally the lyrics will be co-written by Syd Barrett. Press play.
I really thought I’d be further off than I was. This is actually a pretty competent progressive rock album. Words really can’t express my surprise (no, this isn’t a dig Storm). There is a very organic feel to the use of psychadelia which is rare, even in psychedelic music. Far too often is this element just a shoehorned in throwback to the good old days of tie dye and too much reefer. Groovy man. The vocals provided by Lee Dorrian have a slowed down feel to them which is very reminiscent of Rain, the B-side to The Beatles Paperback Writer. There is just a touch of sitar here and there and is that a mellotron I hear? I love this record!
The lyrics are merely serviceable, but it’s the music I’m interested in. Let’s be honest, prog has horrible lyrics as it is, but as opposed to the recent Dream Theater review, at least they sound good musically. At least it’s not as pretentious as Tales From Topographic Oceans I guess.
As far as double album bloat goes this one isn’t actually bad. In fact it’s far less bloated than most single disc releases are these days. The second disc to me isn’t as strong as the first, with the best individual track being The Running Man, which still would have had more impact at half the length. Journey into Jade sounds like a bad B-side. For me the album ends with Requiem For The Voiceless.
The production is the only real bitch point. It’s obviously quite clipped, which really muddies the sound of the drums and distils some of the impact. I guess this could have been a deliberate move to reduce the ‘metal’ sound the band probably has normally but I’m sure most people would rather the full dynamics given the opportunity. Also the stereo field is quite narrow in a lot of places. Soundscapes only feel truly impressive when they feel big which is tough to do in near mono. Really, the music deserves so much better than the production delivers.
Storm, I know you were terrified at the idea of me reviewing one of your CDs but this is probably one of my favourite albums of the past decade, if only for the first disc. Now, how much do you reckon it would cost to get an audiophile grade remastering project organised?
Funeral of Dreams: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeUhGe4qFFU
Cats, Incense, Candles & Wine: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLtERBGSyuE
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