Review by Ben for Cathedral - Forest of Equilibrium (1991)

There are a lot of things that I love about Cathedral's debut outing. Firstly, the artwork is brilliant and completely messed up! Every time I look at it, I find something interesting I haven't noticed before. As for the music, this is extremely slow, heavy doom metal and by far Cathedral's heaviest album. I really enjoy tracks such as Ebony Tears, Serpent Eve and Reaching Happiness, Touching Pain. They created such a dark, weird atmosphere and Lee's vocals are perfectly bizarre. These guys were also not afraid to experiment with little touches of flute, acoustic guitars and keyboard added to the mix. It was a completely unique sound back in 1991, and while borrowing heavily from former doom bands, took everything to a new level of doominess. I can't think of an album prior to this one, with the exception of Winter's Eternal Darkness album, that explores to these depths.

I’d like to give it a high rating, but I just don't love Forest of Equilibrium all the way through. Most of the time the slowness works in its favour, but occasionally it causes me to drift off. I'm a massive fan of funeral doom (which this album totally influenced) and so it's not simply the style that loses me. A couple of the longer tracks just don't keep me interested all the way through, and I don't think I enjoy Cathedral's forays into stoner and heavy metal as much as when they concentrate on crushing doom. I guess I don’t enjoy where this band went with their music after this release and there were already signs of what was to come. Overall though, this is an important and influential album that for many is an absolute favourite. For me, it’s a good listen, but I think I enjoy the darker bands that were influenced by it more than the album itself.