Cathedral - Cosmic Requiem (1994)

During the first half of Cathedral’s career the band had a real thing for releasing overly impressive EPs that while only a couple of songs, they were worth every cent you might pay. 'Cosmic Requiem' from '94 is a good example, although it’s kind of a weird EP. Essentially it’s a re-release of the 'Statik Majik' EP, but instead of featuring 'Midnight Mountain' it has 'Funeral Request - Rebirth' in place. Why? No idea, but it’s a damn fine song.

At this point in the bands career they hadn’t completely abandoned the slow dirging doom/death stylings of their debut 'Forest of Equilibrium' just yet as small traces tiptoe through, but for the most part the listener is treated to the groovier stoner doom side of Cathedral that appeared on their sophomore record 'The Ethereal Mirror' and what would eventually characterize most of their future recordings. I’ve always thought of Lee Dorian as one of the best singers out there and his vocal performance on this recording just further confirms my approval. I've always enjoyed the way he goes from his semi-growly wobbly howl to his cleanly sung parts, and also his random chatter during some of the rocking parts is awesome too, thus making him a totally unique voice in both this genre and really music in general. "Let's Groove - Sonic Muthafucka!!!!"

The first three songs have a fair balance between the heavy doom side and the groovy stoner side, usually starting out in one particular style and then suddenly changing early on or mid-way through. 'Cosmic Funeral' is a pretty good example of this as the song seems to progress from snails pace doom to groovier territory to just plain odd rocking out by the middle of the song. Its also interestingly one of the few Cathedral songs that makes use of synths alongside the guitars and they splice them in a totally special way. 'Hypnos 164' is the EP's fastest song that almost entirely abandons the sluggish doom in favor of a more straight forward rockin' sound while 'Funeral Request - Rebirth' is full on gloom and doom at the beginning but moves towards a more drone-ish pace, but eventually picks up in speed and becomes a total headbanger of a song near the end.

In any case, these are some of fine songs, but these songs are just a small teaser for the highly experimental twenty two minute EP closer, 'The Voyage of the Homeless Sapien.' The song seems to explore all the groovy aspects of the previous songs and creates a very psychedelic mood, but still plenty of heavy doomy riffs are present too. Of course Lee’s vocals are big part of the song and during the journey you’ll hear quite a bit of odd things coming out of his mouth, perhaps suggesting that he was under the influence of some mind altering drug. Besides that there are just a lot of weird moments in this song that keep it interesting the entire journey.

At forty three minutes this is a neat little EP that’s definitely worth checking out if you should stumble upon it for a few dollars. Of course you could probably be just as pleased with any of the first three Cathedral albums, but something about this one has always grabbed me and kept me coming back for more and more.