Description

As with a choice few truly great bands, the first self-financed cassette recording by Cathedral – made available in October 1990 – was a pioneering underground masterpiece in its own right; the sound of a young band exploring its newfound chemistry, finding confident variations on a flawless list of influences and cultivating a sound and style that would prove hugely inspirational throughout the 1990s and beyond, being a major influence on everyone from Electric Wizard through to Reverend Bizarre. Where most demos are little more than a dry run for the first album, In Memoriam still has its own distinct and important identity in the Cathedral canon. The debut album that followed, Forest Of Equilibrium, has a sombre, devout, melodic and mystical grandeur all of its own – but In Memoriam has a far murkier, earthier, more deathly intent. Creepy, cryptic and bowel-looseningly heavy, it represents the first time that the doom metal stylings of Trouble, Saint Vitus, Pentagram and Witchfinder General had been rendered in a new, more extreme metallic form. At the beginning of the new decade, it was really only Cathedral who was proud to assert the influence of true doom metal – a perennially unfashionable genre, but especially in a turn-of-the-decade metal scene so obsessed with speed, technicality, brutality and modernity. Track listing: 1. Mourning Of A New Day 2. All Your Sins 3. Ebony Tears 4. March 5. Commiserating The Celebration-live 6. Ebony Tears-live 7. Neophytes For The Serpent Eve-live 8. All Your Sins-live 9. Mourning Of A New Day-live