Whist firmly maintaining the tradition of missing the first band, main support CHURCH OF MISERY was setting up and even before a single cord was stuck they had a trad Doom aura about themselves, no doubt brought up on a strict diet of early SABBATH and CELTIC FROST.

Lead Yoshiaki Negishi has a Zakk Wylde quality to his vocals, fortunately for us without the ego and tedious solos. Tom Satan’s riffs are straight out of Tony Iommi’s Big Book of Metal Riffs giving every song a melodic groove. Altogether a tight performance by the band with great crowd interaction lead by Negishi’s climbing on the speaker stacks possibly to find some space as the stage was cluttered with CATHEDRAL’s kit.

The recording of a new album brings out even the most reclusive bands to tout their latest wears. So it was no surprise to hear ‘Funeral of Dreams’ off The Guessing Game album as the opening song, followed by ‘Painting in the Dark’. Both of which have that classic CATHEDRAL dark psychedelic atmosphere clearly well received by the crowd. No CATHEDRAL show would be complete without a rendition of ‘Ride’ with Lee Dorrian shouting over the rumble of downturned guitars.

After a brief blast from the past its back to the present with ‘Death of an Anarchist’ and ‘Cats, Incense, Candles and Wine’ had the crowd nodding along but it wasn’t until towards the end of the set and for what I and many other had been waiting, ‘Serpents Eve’ a mere snippet of CATHEDRALS early genius, a distortion filled dirge that filled the room with pure venomous indignation.

An encore of ‘Corpsecycle’ and ‘Hopkins (The Witchfinder General)’ brought the night to a close, the latter getting a very loud reception and it took little encouragement from Dorrian to get the crowd singing along.

From the set it was fairly evident that Dorrian and company must think their latest album is something pretty special as they packed five songs into the set leaving out many classics, which for myself and for anyone else seeing them for the first time was a little disappointing, although hearing ‘Serpents Eve’ from the Forest of Equilibrium album did much to compensate.

Rating:

Review by Alex Shaw