Artist: Cathedral
Label:Earache/Columbia Records
Release Date: 1993
Rating: 4 Skulls
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Title: The Ethereal Mirror Artist: Cathedral Label:Earache/Columbia Records Release Date: 1993 Rating: 4 Skulls |
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Reviewed by Solomon:
A name like The Ethereal Mirror is almost too gothic, too serious and lofty to describe this "doom" classic. Cathedral have always stayed slaves to the gutter, but this brand of heavier-than-thou metal is bluesier, bouncier, more rockish and more in line with the "happy" stoner metal of Kyuss and forefathers Black Sabbath than their grimmer counterparts Candlemass and Solitude Aeturnus. Sheesh, how many metal songs can you name that include sprightly handclapping ("Midnight Mountain")? This upbeat approach is punctuated by the opening chugga-chugga gallop of "Ride," which has become the band's signature tune and another prime example of how often less means more. "Enter The Worms" follows immediately after like a form compare/contrast, its slow, churning grave digging reminding you this was the same troupe that brought you the warm, fuzzy Forest of Equilibrium just a few years earlier. Many Cathedral regulars would actually cite Forest as the band's greatest achievement, but Mirror and its accompanying single/video for "Ride" AND Earache's nifty but short-lived relationship with Columbia Records gave this album and its creators some added commercial visibility. Unfortunately, Cathedral's future was not filled with platinum, but Mirror remains a 90's staple of doom/stoner metal. In addition to prime cuts "Ride" and "Enter The Worms," the dissonant bounce of "Grim Luxuria" is another almost-good-enough-for-radio track that sounds suspiciously like a slower version of the riff from "Enter Sandman," but, eh, probably just a nice co-weenky-dink. Even for its occaissional accessibility, Mirror was still just too slow, low and miserable to ever break out of the underground. That, and the tounge-in-cheek, bogeyman vox of ex-Carcass [Ed. - Dorrian is NOT a former member of Carcass, but of Napalm Death] crooner Lee Dorrian can either be really cool and unique or terribly silly, depending on how you take them. Anyway, Mirror is another reason Cathedral stands today as a well-respected, legendary proponent of the doom genre.
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