Cathedral – The Garden of Unearthly Delights – Review

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The Garden of Unearthly Delights (Nuclear Blast)
by Ari M. Joffe

Cathedral has never been afraid of experimentation, regardless of what fans or record labels have had to say. Over the course of 16 years, their sound has flowed freely amidst dirge-doom, classic British metal, and retro ’70’s muscle car hard rock. The Garden of Unearthly Delights combines all those styles with a sense of musical freedom and sonic experimentation one would associate with the best of Pink Floyd’s work, or the Bob Ezrin-produced Alice Cooper records from the early ’70s. It’s an approach to writing rock songs that allows the musicians to arrange their tunes in a big, broad way. Moments where they could have easily let the standard guitar/bass/drums instrumentation just roll on through are replaced with a chorus of chirping voices, spacey acoustic funk grooves, flutes, or a singular female voice. It’s a freaky way to go about things, and the fellas really let their hippie colors show on the album’s centerpiece, the 27 minute opus, “The Garden.”

This is an awesome, eclectic, mature record, and it’s clear that the band enjoys pushing their playing, writing, and arranging skills as far as they’ll go.
(www.nuclearblastusa.com)