Cathedral is one of the most respected doom bands working today, and with good reason. For years, they've consistently produced good, heavy, thick music that gets under your skin (as well as other places). Their sound is identifiable in a second…one note from Gaz Jennings' guitar, and you know it's them. And Lee Dorrian's vocals remain some of the most distinctive of the breed.
So it's no surprise that Supernatural Birth Machine, their latest, is good stuff, even if it's a bit familiar. The album falls in the same vein as The Carnival Bizarre, their previous full-length album, the songs on both albums sounding as if they were written around the same time. (After Carnival Bizarre came a wonderfully strange EP, Hopkins: The Witchfinder General, which, among other things, was the only Cathedral album to contain a horn section, and featured a fantastic cover of the 60's hit "Fire".)
That's not a complaint. The Carnival Bizarre remains one of metal's best albums, and Supernatural Birth Machine is almost up there with it. Just shy, though.
It's clear from looking at the lyrical content that the boys have been listening to a lot of old Voivod lately. Songs like "Phaser Quest," "Fireball Demon," "Suicide Asteroid," "Magnetic Hole" and "Birth Machine 2000" make me feel like they went a little too far into cheesy sci-fi territory. But Cathedral's lyrics have never been expected to stand on their own as poetry - rather, they've always complemented the mood of the music perfectly, and in that regard they've succeeded here, too.
I particularly liked "Urko's Conquest," a thinly veiled retelling of Planet of the Apes. It's a good example of how good Cathedral is at setting a mood, and building on it.
If you've never heard Cathedral before, frankly, I'd start with The Carnival Bizarre. But you're going to get hooked on them, and you'll move quickly on to this album. It's good fun.
Back to Index