Cathedral – The Guessing Game (2010)

Five years have passed since the band’s last effort “The Garden of Unearthly Delights” and Cathedral has returned with another brilliant release with “The Guessing Game”. Having been around for 20 years and evolving unlike any other band of their time, Cathedral breaks the mold of Stoner/Doom Metal music by adding more progressive and psychedelic elements to their already diverse sound.

Lee Dorian and folks have never made a single album that had disappointed us and “The Guessing Game” is no exception to this rule. Released as a in a double CD, we have over 80 minutes of brilliant music that will surely please Cathedral fans. While the band is less ‘Doomy’ than before, they do a great job of combining Doom Metal riffs with a wide variety of instruments and sounds.

Being pioneers in the genre since their conception, Cathedral keeps pushing the envelope when it comes to their releases. With “The Guessing Game” the band pushes more on the psychedelic and progressive rock area, but never leaving behind their groovy riffs that we all love from them.

Like all Cathedral albums “The Guessing Game” requires more than one listen in order for people to truly appreciate and understand this release. If you are new to the band, we highly recommend that you listen to their back catalogue first, since jumping into this stage in their career will leave you confused. Originality is a very precise word to describe what has made Cathedral one of the pioneer bands of Doom/Stoner Metal and Metal in general.

After all these years, Lee Dorian’s vocals are as good as back in the day and they provide the perfect narration for this psychedelic journey into the band’s world. The use of the Mellotron in this release gives the music an authentic sound of the 70’s that many music lovers like use will greatly appreciate. The rest of the music is very catchy and well written; something Cathedral has been perfection over the years.

Every song in “The Guessing Game” is brilliant in its own way and you should take your time in enjoying each track. Like always, the band’s releases are never easy to understand and show many faces of the band, but they are come together very nicely. If you have been a fan of the band since the beginning you will greatly appreciate this release. As for new people getting into the band, give it a few tries before you decide to discard this release, you will surely discover the gem hiding underneath the ‘different’ sound that “The Guessing Game” has.

Release: April 20th, 2010

Country: UK