Rise Above
2013
1. Entrance To Hell
2. Pallbearer
3. Cathedral Of The Damned
4. Tower Of Silence
5. Infestation Of Grey Death
6. An Observation
7. The Last Laugh
8. This Body, Thy Tomb
Well, here it is, Cathedral's last album. It's always sad to see a band I've liked over the years coming to an end, but I had some mixed feelings going into this one. I really did not like their last double album, The Guessing Game at all and it left me with serious questions about if the band had another album in them. Sometimes bands decide to hang it up a wee bit too late and this seemed like it could be the case here. I guess all good things must come to an end. It's just a matter of if it would be on Cathedral's terms or if the decision was kind of made for them.
I think the best I can say after listening to The Last Spire is I can see what they were going for and it's better than The Guessing Game. What The Last Spire seems to try to do is get back to the band's more doomy roots. This is an album loaded with long tracks and moves along at a funeral doom sort of pace. I get it and the sound/atmosphere of the album isn't bad.
The trudging nature of this album is so total though that often The Last Spire seems like it would make better background/soundtrack material than an album. All the tracks seem sort of subdued and perhaps too mired in their own atmosphere. Things just try too hard to be Dooooooom and the band seems to kinda forget who they are and have been since like their second album.
I just don't hear a lot of good grooves or creativity in these songs. The thing that made songs from their early catalogue like Ride or Enter The Worms good for me is the driving groove behind the songs that worshiped at the altar of Sabbath and the like. That is the kind of material I would have liked Cathedral to get back to and go out on. This simply put doesn't have it and pretty much all the songs drag on for what seems like forever. Songs fail to distinguish themselves from each other for me and I feel like these tracks are bloated just for the sake of appearing more traditional. Add in an intro that just keeps saying "bring out your dead" over and over and over again and a random bit of laughing on track 7 and you just have a whole lot of time that feels wasted.
Basically, what you end up with here is competent, slow and long doom songs that sound pretty good, but overstay their welcome and never have that riff that hits it home or that sort of evil creeping feel that a song like Enter The Worms brought to the table. I know I've mentioned that song already, but really if the band wanted to get back to a more doomy, not quite as stoner-ish sound than The Ethereal Mirror would be the bar to measure this album against for me. This simply put doesn't reach that sort of quality. This is an ok album overall, but one lacking in Great highlights and these tracks all feel bloated/flawed. Decent by funeral doom standards, not great by early Cathedral ones. I'll always have a place in my listening for Cathedral and they've made some great albums, but the band is done and it's probably good they agree. I'd say they probably should've went out on a high note with The Garden Of Unearthly Delights.
Highlights: There are good moments in the tracks, but all of them seem a bit flawed. Mostly in their length.
Rating - 3.0/5
2. Pallbearer
3. Cathedral Of The Damned
4. Tower Of Silence
5. Infestation Of Grey Death
6. An Observation
7. The Last Laugh
8. This Body, Thy Tomb
Well, here it is, Cathedral's last album. It's always sad to see a band I've liked over the years coming to an end, but I had some mixed feelings going into this one. I really did not like their last double album, The Guessing Game at all and it left me with serious questions about if the band had another album in them. Sometimes bands decide to hang it up a wee bit too late and this seemed like it could be the case here. I guess all good things must come to an end. It's just a matter of if it would be on Cathedral's terms or if the decision was kind of made for them.
I think the best I can say after listening to The Last Spire is I can see what they were going for and it's better than The Guessing Game. What The Last Spire seems to try to do is get back to the band's more doomy roots. This is an album loaded with long tracks and moves along at a funeral doom sort of pace. I get it and the sound/atmosphere of the album isn't bad.
The trudging nature of this album is so total though that often The Last Spire seems like it would make better background/soundtrack material than an album. All the tracks seem sort of subdued and perhaps too mired in their own atmosphere. Things just try too hard to be Dooooooom and the band seems to kinda forget who they are and have been since like their second album.
I just don't hear a lot of good grooves or creativity in these songs. The thing that made songs from their early catalogue like Ride or Enter The Worms good for me is the driving groove behind the songs that worshiped at the altar of Sabbath and the like. That is the kind of material I would have liked Cathedral to get back to and go out on. This simply put doesn't have it and pretty much all the songs drag on for what seems like forever. Songs fail to distinguish themselves from each other for me and I feel like these tracks are bloated just for the sake of appearing more traditional. Add in an intro that just keeps saying "bring out your dead" over and over and over again and a random bit of laughing on track 7 and you just have a whole lot of time that feels wasted.
Basically, what you end up with here is competent, slow and long doom songs that sound pretty good, but overstay their welcome and never have that riff that hits it home or that sort of evil creeping feel that a song like Enter The Worms brought to the table. I know I've mentioned that song already, but really if the band wanted to get back to a more doomy, not quite as stoner-ish sound than The Ethereal Mirror would be the bar to measure this album against for me. This simply put doesn't reach that sort of quality. This is an ok album overall, but one lacking in Great highlights and these tracks all feel bloated/flawed. Decent by funeral doom standards, not great by early Cathedral ones. I'll always have a place in my listening for Cathedral and they've made some great albums, but the band is done and it's probably good they agree. I'd say they probably should've went out on a high note with The Garden Of Unearthly Delights.
Highlights: There are good moments in the tracks, but all of them seem a bit flawed. Mostly in their length.
Rating - 3.0/5
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