CATHEDRAL
The Serpent's Gold (Earache Records)
Reviewed by Jason Thornberry

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Ever watch an ice cube melt, or a snail make its way from the sidewalk to your door? That's what the better tracks on this double disc retrospective felt like. Brilliantly, Lee Dorrian, the visionary behind the doom-to-the-max group Cathedral, slips the agonizing deceleration of rock itself among other numbers that could have been any number of respectable jukeboxes in 1974.

The Serpent's Gold is the result of Cathedral growing up before our eyes, and feeling the same growing pains ("Ride") every great band does before they reach their pinnacle ("Enter The Worms", oddly enough, on the same album). The inclusion of their earliest, most extreme songs ("Equilibrium", "Ebony Tears", "Autumn Twilight") makes their foray into superbly strange seventies necrophilia "Vampire Sun" ("Aw, c'mon! Let's get it on!") and images of electric vultures perfect, like something from a Ralph Bakshi film.

Disc Two is packed with rarities and demos, so you feel like you're in the rehearsal room with Cathedral as they're thinking of new ways to baffle the world -- often at about 20 bpms. As The Serpent's Gold ends you appreciate the precision of the slogan "Slow and steady wins...", and you'll plan to step cautiously around snails from here on.

10/10

© 2004 - Jason Thornberry