CATHEDRAL — Forest of Equilibrium (review)

CATHEDRAL — Forest of Equilibrium album cover Album · 1991 · Doom Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
5/5 ·
Time Signature
Beauty and innocence...

Genre: doom metal

Do you like it deep, deep and hard? Hold on, I'm talking about music here. The title of Type O Negative's debut album actually describes "Forest of Equilibrium" very well. The early 90s were interesting in relation to doom metal, as the genre was revised, and in many ways rejuvenated, by a group of British bands. The most well known of these are probably My Dying Bride, Paradise Lost, and Anathema, all of whom infused a good dose of death metal into the genre. However, Cathedral's influence on the genre should not be, although it often is, underestimated.

The music on "Forest of Equilibrium" is slow and heavy, but still it is melodic, albeit it a more melancholic fashion. Despite Lee Dorrian's history with grindcore and death metal legends Napalm Death, "Forest of Equilibrium" is not, unlike the first couple of releases by the above-mentioned 'Big Three', really death metal inspired at all. Rather than fusing death metal into the doom metal genre, Cathedral basically draw on the epic style of European doom metal and the stoner style of American doom metal (both of which may be attributed to Black Sabbath) and recombine them into an extremely slow and perhaps technically more simplified type of doom metal (the only really uptempo track is "Soul Sacrifice"). Also, Lee Dorrian's vocals, while harsh, are not really growled but rather moaned.

According to the band members themselves, the slow tempo is really due them not being proficient enough to emulate the style of Trouble, Candlemass, St. Vitus and the like - but as those of us who've been in a doom metal band know, it is actually very difficult to play at such a slow pace as Cathedral do on this album. In any case, the slow and heavy style on this album works very well, and the application of melodic harmony guitars at such a slow pace really makes for a unique sense of sadness and desperation (just check out tracks like "Ebony Tears", "a Funeral Request", and the psychedelic "Reaching Happiness Touching Pain".

This is an epitome of extreme doom metal, and, what I really like about it is that, despite the slow tempos, it never loses its sense of texture (which I think a lot of contemporary extemely slow so-called funeral doom metal bands tend to do), and I would recommend it to all fans of doom metal. This album, along with its successor, deserves the same sort of celebration as Paradise Lost's "Gothic" and "Shades of God", My Dying Bride's "As the Flower Withers" and "Turn Loose the Swans", and Anathema's "Serenades".
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