Album of the day: Cathedral – The Guessing Game

Lovingly pinched from The Obelisk: A double album is always a curious read, and Cathedral’s ninth full-length, The Guessing Game, with which the legendary UK doom outfit celebrates their 20th anniversary, is no exception. All the more so considering The Guessing Game is so close to the 80-minute limit of what would fit on a regular compact disc that, if the band had nixed the two two-and-a-half-minute intros, the record would have fit easily. So it’s not like they’ve come up with such an abundance of material as a follow-up to 2005’s The Garden of Unearthly Delights, but the jeans are just a little too tight to hold what they’ve got. I think we’ve all been there at one time or another.

Please don’t take that as calling The Guessing Game bloated. As one of the bands who set the course for the genre of traditional doom with classic albums like 1993’s The Ethereal Mirror and 1995’s The Carnival Bizarre, they know what it takes to make a good record, and although I generally fall on the side of cut what you need to to make it work — to the point of agreeing with George Martin that The White Album should have been a single disc (would the world really miss “Rocky Raccoon” or “Revolution No. 9?”) — if after two decades of existence, Cathedral want to make a 2CD, I’m not about to fault them for doing so. After five years, I’m just happy to have a new record. Any issue of how to interpret whether to take it as one whole work or two separate albums is secondary to that. Maybe that’s The Guessing Game.

In any case, the remaining original and principal members of the band, vocalist Lee Dorrian (whose back story by now shouldn’t need retelling) and guitarist Garry “Gaz” Jennings, both give remarkable performances throughout The Guessing Game. From “Funeral of Dreams” and down the line of the first disc’s material, Dorrian’s voice is a constant high point. Even as “Funeral of Dreams” pays bizarre homage to ritualistic ‘70s prog — think bands like Black Widow and Coven — Dorrian stays in character and on point vocally. And it’s a hearty “holy shit” moment nearly every time Jennings kicks into a solo, perhaps most especially on “Painting in the Dark.”

Continue reading: The Obelisk » Blog Archive » Here’s a Cathedral Review that Would Also Have to Fit on Two Discs.
(Special thanks to JJ Koczan for the kind permission)

Tags: album of the day, cathedral, doom, Gaz Jennings, JJ Koczan, lee dorrian, nuclear blast, The Guessing Game, The Obelisk

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 28th, 2010 at 8:33 am and is filed under 2010, Album of the Day, Roadburn Recommended . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.