Review by Daniel for Cathedral - Soul Sacrifice (1992)

Coventry stoner doom masters Cathedral's debut album "Forest of Equilibrium" absolutely floored me back in 1991. I simply found it so refreshing to hear a record that was so inspired by the past yet presented its influences in a way that sounded entirely fresh & which contained so much depth. It certainly helped that it's one of the doomiest records I've ever heard in my life as I'm sure you all know of my passion for gratuitous waves of deep audio oppression by now. I'd purchase "Forest of Equilibrium" on cassette shortly after it was released & it would immediately become a life-long favourite of mine. I'd frantically go hunting for more of this sound too which would lead me to Cathedral's marvelous 1990 "In Memorium" demo tape which I also regard as a genuine doom metal classic. That would unfortunately have to do me for a while, that is until Earache Records released their "Gods of Grind" compilation CD the following year, a release that included E.P.'s from Carcass, Entombed, Confessor &... what do you know, huh? A new Cathedral E.P.!!

Contrary to popular opinion, the "Soul Sacrifice" E.P. wasn't recorded during the "Forest of Equilibrium" sessions, instead being laid down in January 1992. The version of "Soul Sacrifice" that appears on the E.P. is slightly different to the one that I regard as being the only real blemish on the debut album. The differences don't leave it commanding a different response from me though I'm afraid. I simply can't get into that more chuggy, up-tempo & groovy stoner metal shit. The other three songs are all brand new which left me with considerable excitement. Sadly though, two of the three take a similar musical direction to the title track so I find myself struggling with both "Golden Blood (Flooding)" & particularly "Autumn Twilight". Lee Dorrian's heavily pitchy vocal stylings are done no favours by this material either. Thankfully though, the remaining song "Frozen Rapture" is an absolute doom metal monster of the most epic proportions imaginable. In fact, it's seriously one of the greatest examples of the genre I've ever heard in my life & I can't imagine why it never managed to make it onto a full-length album. Sure, there's a short stoner metal groove riff accompanied by s cheesy cowbell about two thirds of the way through the song but it's all over very quickly with things returning to pure desperation & depression. I can't tell you how life-changing this song has been for me across my life. It still gives me chills to this day.

So, the "Soul Sacrifice" E.P. sounds fairly inessential really, doesn't it? It kinda says something that I find it to be comfortably the weaker of the four E.P.'s on the "Gods of Grind compilation too but "Soul Sacrifice" falls into a fairly unique bracket of releases for me in that it can genuinely be carried by the one stunning piece, despite the fact that I get very little out of the remaining inclusions. It's also worth mentioning that the online consensus that the E.P. is a doom metal release is overly ambitious given that three of the four songs clearly fall into the groovy stoner metal camp. "Golden Blood (Flooding)" has a fantastic doom section towards the end that sits right up there in the top echelon of the genre but sadly it's wasted on a lengthy track that spends far more time in Groovetown. I'm sure stoner nuts that bow down at the altar of bands like Sleep, Church of Misery & Orange Goblin might have less of a problem with this material than I do but I still don't see "Soul Sacrifice" competing with the better releases from the stoner metal genre. It's merely an inessential platform for Cathedral to showcase one of its finest moments in my opinion so I'll always keep the CD handy, even if I might use the skip button a few times (often to return to the start of "Frozen Rapture" for another run).