cathedral the guessing game

Released: 29 March 2010 Label: Nuclear Blast

Five years after the monumental Garden of Unearthly Delights album legendary doomsters Cathedral return with an album which is, if anything, even more sprawling than their previous opus with their first double album The Guessing Game to mark the band’s twentieth year together.

Once again the band refuse to follow well-worn blueprints and take a step in to the left field with large parts of The Guessing Game taking just as much, if not more, influence from 70s prog as classic doom metal with a theremin in evidence on several songs and more keyboards than the band have used in many years. That’s not to say there’s any lack of crushing riffs and Gaz Jennings’ trademark guitar solos though because they’re both here in abundance in addition to the prog weirdness as well.

Despite the length of the album and its sprawling nature there’s barely a hint of self-indulgence here, with the possible exception of Journey Into Jade (more on which later) with none of the songs outstaying their welcome. With influences from old prog rock, classic doom and traditional metal / NWOBHM all mixed up together to greater or lesser extent throughout the course of The Guessing Game it does take quite a few listens to fully appreciate the album with so much going on but once the songs start sinking their hooks in to you the likes of Painting in the Dark, Cat's, Incense, Candles & Wine and Casket Chasers are just irresistible and will remain with you long after the album has finished.

As I said, the only real hint of self-indulgence here is the aforementioned Journey Into Jade which, much like Victory on Megadeth’s Youthanasia album is made up of song / album titles of the band’s previous releases... and, also much like Victory, though it’s a nice idea it’s one that doesn’t really work and ends up sounding a bit naff. It’s a rare low point though, not just on this album but in Cathedral’s entire career so I think they can be forgiven a moment of naffness looking back over the band’s past two decades together.

Overall though The Guessing Game is a quality release for any fan of riff laden heavy metal with plenty of hooks and is sure to be high up on many people’s end of year album lists.

by Neil Woodfin