It’s been 12 years since Cathedral had called it a day after finishing it up by unleashing their tenth and final studio album The Last Spire released on Lee Dorian’s label Rise Above Records. Cathedral was a band like no other, they carried the aspects of gothic structures, doom metal, and obscure progressive rock influences floating out of the night-time sky.
We know that the possibility of them reuniting would never happen. That is true, because it would be a cash grab. We have the music, the legacy, and the albums that brought us. But something lurked from the graves as they take a whole meaning of lending out one last piece of music which was recorded during the sessions of 2013’s The Last Spire. It was a 30-minute piece called ‘Society’s Pact with Satan’. The final recording that the band ever did.
It never saw the light of day because it wasn’t mixed during that time frame and it was completely forgotten about. Until now. When producer Jamie Gomez Arellano was sorting through his old recordings, he came across the last piece that Cathedral had recorded. He contacted the band members letting them know that he found a piece of hidden treasure.
When they heard it, they knew it was time to give the proper full circle of its release. And here we are, hearing this bad boy top to bottom. And let me just say, ‘Society’s Pact with Satan’ is the proper send-off Cathedral has unleashed.
From the moment the sounds of the mellotron choir and its musique concrete orientation begins, you know the sounds of maniac laughter is filling up Arkham Asylum like a ticking time-bomb, ready to explode at any second as the inmates are about to take over Gotham with a mighty fist. But it’s the roaring fuzz and sludge-like riffs comes out of the horizon that’ll make your skin crawl.
But the organ and Lee Dorrian himself, does this chant-like lyrical texture as if the organ is hypnotising Lee to give a sermon in the Holy Mountain as he sings, “Blood red sky/black sunrise/flaming earth/watch it die!” They know something’s cooking when he goes into this Peter Hammill-like approach which speaks of the In Camera years that Lee might had been listening to during The Last Spire sessions.
This isn’t the occult, this is terrifying and in your face that Lee visions himself as this god-like character, knowing that things are about to change as all hell has broken loose on the 30-minute epic. It then goes into a romping roller-coaster ride as Lee transforms himself into this blood-curling monster, eating massive amounts of human flesh like no other!
He ain’t fucking around. When he unleashes himself as this vicious beast, you better run like hell. Because if you get too close, he will go cannibalistic torture on yo’ ass like no other! But what’s this? It’s this a nod to the opening riff of CAN’s ‘Father Cannot Yell’ from the Monster Movie album? My god, it is! Lee knows his source material very, very well.
This isn’t just about their love to Black Sabbath and the late, great Ozzy Osbourne, but a true force of electricity, sparking out vibrations coming inside your earphones with wah-wah solos, pounding drums, and rising tidal waves approaching. The rhythm section gets in hot pursuit with massive lead sections, pounding bass, and drum work to set the pace for the mellotrons to lurk out of the shadows.
It should be noted that the ascending psychedelic doom comes upwards to the red sky above with its massive prog orientation before the acoustic guitar with folky crisp makes a soft landing to the ground. Here, the guitars bring to mind King Crimson’s ‘Peace’ section from In The Wake of Poseidon that Garry Jennings pays homage to Fripp’s textures before the Frippertronics had started come to being in the late ‘70s.
Switching gears, it goes into a Space Rock orientation with Lee as the chain of commander, chanting “We/De-stroy/Ourselves!” repeatable times with its nod to both Motorpsycho and Hawkwind having this son of the gods, going in this fast-paced light speed attempt and giving the dreaded bullshit worlds of both Star Wars and Star Trek, the massive giant middle finger to them and going into this illustrated fantasy magazine of parallel universes from the world of Heavy Metal.
The last eight minutes gets even more sinister with its climatic showdown as Lee becomes a conductor for Garry, Brian, and Scott, telling them to come in, and come out with its stop-and-go. Listen to what Garry is doing. He’s playing this incredible improv that is just something cannon-ball like exploding in your eardrums. No, he’s not shredding, but he’s given all he’s got by reaching the light at the end of the tunnel as Mellotrons follow him in hot pursuit!
It goes back to the reprise from the opening section of the piece with a mutating effect as if Lee has accomplished his mission, knowing that Cathedral are about to go out in a blaze of glory. ‘Society’s Pact with Satan’ is an incredible farewell for the band. It turns in danger, monstrous, roaring beauty mixed in with avant-garde, metal, prog, and psychedelics ready and waiting for you to delve into.
It’s the way that both prog metal and prog rock add in massive amounts of ice cream with a delicious taste of a doom sundae, waiting to be delivered to you. And what a blast it’s been to say to Cathedral, thank you and thanks for the incredible send-off with the 30-minute epic we’ve endured.
