CATHEDRAL — The Guessing Game (review)

CATHEDRAL — The Guessing Game album cover Album · 2010 · Stoner Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
3.5/5 ·
UMUR
"The Guessing Game" is the 9th full-length studio album by UK doom metal act Cathedral. The album was released through Nuclear Blast Records in March 2010. It´s the successor to "The Garden of Unearthly Delights" from 2005. Five years between albums is a pretty long recording break even in this day and age, and there were rumours in those days, that Cathedral in fact contemplated disbanding after the release of "The Garden of Unearthly Delights", but they apparently opted to carry on.

"The Guessing Game" is a double album release and Cathedral seems to have chosen that the first disc should feature their more experimental/semi-progressive doom metal tracks while the second disc features the more hard rockin´ doom/stoner metal tracks of the album. This is not strictly the case though, as both music styles float into each other during most tracks on both discs.

As mentioned it´s especially the first disc which features lots of vintage synths/keyboards and odd/psychadelic type sections. Those sections work really well together with the more regular heavy doom metal riffing and as a result the first disc is able to keep the listener´s attention from wandering all the way through. There´s really a successful use of variation on display here. Tracks like "Immaculate Misconception", "Funeral of Dreams", the title track, and "Cats, Incense, Candles and Wine" display the band at their most adventurous. Lead vocalist Lee Dorrian delivers one of this more clean vocal performances as opposed to his sometimes more raw delivery. I miss the latter vocal style a bit here but Dorrian´s vocal delivery is unpolished and charming as ever. Out of key, and slightly deranged, but still greatly charming.

The second disc has yet to catch and maintain my attention like the first disc does. The tracks generally don´t stand out from each other and it´s like the band ran dry of ideas at this point. Still Cathedral to some extent delivers the goods. They just sound like their delivery and songwriting are a bit more routine and that´s always a danger with established acts. So while the first disc shows that the band are still willing and able to experiment with their core sound, the second disc unfortunately shows that the core sound isn´t always that interesting unless it´s tweaked and meddled with like the band do with success on the first disc.

So while musicianship, sound production, and when most adventurous also the songwriting, are of good quality, I wouldn´t exactly call "The Guessing Game" the band´s most successful release. I would be stretching if I gave the album a 3.5 star (70%) rating so I guess a 3 - 3.5 star (65%) rating provides a better image of my opinion.
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