CoC : Cathedral - The Carnival Bizarre : Review

Cathedral - _The Carnival Bizarre_
(Earache, 1995)
by: Gino Filicetti (6 out of 10)

Cathedral are back once more with their full length followup to 1993's _The Ethereal Mirror_. The first thing I noticed about this album was that Lee Dorrian's voice has been greatly tamed and calmed, and it fails to be the deep morphic voice that most attracted me to Cathedral in the first place. The music of Cathedral is still similar to their last album. All of the deep groove-laden riffs are still present, and the Sabbathness of their sound comes out even more this time around. Now whether you consider that a plus or a minus is completely up to you, however at certain times during the record, I noticed some riffs that were lifted completely and wholly off of Sabbath songs. There are a couple of really slow, doomy songs that you can almost call ballads, one being "Carnival Bizarre" which begins with a bell chiming, and some chilling atmospheric sounds laid around it. The other, "Fangalatic Supergloria", is almost a typical cheese ballad, but fortunately still very doomy. This album, while still being a pretty solid effort, lacks the one catchy tune that seems to be Cathedral's trademark, like "Midnight Mountain" was on their last album.

(article published 1/10/1995)

CHATS
9/14/2005	J Smit	Cathedral: In the Valley of the Shadow of Death

ALBUMS
5/13/2001	A Wee	9.5	Cathedral - Endtyme
1/2/1997	A Bromley	7	Cathedral - Supernatural Birth Machine
6/9/1996	A Bromley	7	Cathedral - Hopkins (The Witchfinder General)