Album Review- The Distortion Field by Trouble

The last couple months have been pretty good for fans of Doom metal. The mighty Sabbath released an excellent comeback album, Cathedral offered up their brilliant swansong, and now Trouble have put out their first album in four years.

A lot has changed since the band's last studio release, 2007's Simple Mind Condition. Original vocalist Eric Wagner is out, again, and new vocalist, Kyle Thomas of Exhorder, is in. For purists this is sacrilege, but for some folks (I know a few), it is a blessing. Wagner's vocal stylings take some time to get used to, and in Thomas Trouble has found a powerful vocalist minus the quirks of Wagner. Both vocalists are great, but the Thomas approach is more accessible.

And the riffs? They speak for themselves. The album is full of heavy grooves and chiseled leads, just what you'd expect from these legends. Solos abound as well, with each tracking boasting an impressive highlight of the guitar skills of Rick Wartell and Bruce Franklin. There are some surprises on this album, Have I Told You is a grungy ballad that might alienate Doom fans who refuse to acknowledge Changes as a Sabbath tune, but including a song like this on the album shows the band is willing to take chances, not content to keep the wheel they invented spinning in the same direction. But, lest you fear that Trouble have branched out too far beyond the genre they nurtured, just listen to the video included below. They can still rock heavy.

The band sounds reinvigorated on this album, and fans of traditional Doom will rejoice, but not for too long, 'cause they're Doom fans.

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Mini-Review: Cathedral - The Guessing Game

As seen on The Klepto's Guide:

Ok now, this one was an oddity. The only things from Cathedral I have heard has been their first two or three albums, back when they were truly doom. Somewhere around their third album, The Carnival Bizarre, they changed styles into something else. I haven't heard past that change, having liked their doom style, and with no interest in the new, but after a decade and a half, I figure it's time to give it another try. The first thing I have to get across is that The Guessing Game comes off as two different albums, with styles to match. After listening to the album I realized it is a double disc release and that makes sense really, with the great range of styles heard here. The majority of the first disc is not doom, not stoner, not really classifiable. It is almost a simplistic, folky, heavy metal record. On almost every song it sounds like the singer is just talking the lyrics in a rhyming fashion; the music song to song is very disjointed, and the songs themselves are mixes of empty sounding music with vocals over-top or eclectic acoustic guitar and bass segments. If it was only this one album as a release I would have been very disappointed, with the songs (besides a handful) not really being what I would call 'musical.' Some of the songs are ok; "Painting in the Dark," and "Death of an Anarchist" are both listenable (if a bit long), with the song "Cats, Incense, Candles and Wine" being the stand-out. The interesting thing is, that as the release switches albums, so does the style of song. It goes from this almost-unexplainable rock into something more akin to classic Cathedral - doom. The second disc is almost entirely doom, with the occasional quick rocker thrown in for good measure. This is the disc you need to hear; most of the songs being damn good. As I said above, when I listened to The Guessing Game I did not originally know that there were two discs, and I was puzzled with this sudden shift. With the inclusion of a second 'story' (if you will), the full picture is easier to take in. While I wouldn't call this new album from the legendary Cathedral really great, it does hold some interesting points. I would suggest picking it up solely for the second disc, but you will need to hear the first - at least once - to understand what I mean; and honestly to hear something that treads the line between good and strange.

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CATHEDRAL Confirmed For Germany's WACKEN OPEN AIR Festival

Veteran British doom/stoner band CATHEDRAL has been confirmed for next year's edition of the Wacken Open Air festival, set to take place July 30 - August 1, 2009 in Wacken, Germany. Also scheduled to appear is MACHINE HEAD.

CATHEDRAL's latest album, "The Garden of Unearthly Delights", was released in Europe in October 2005 and in North America in January 2006. Produced by Warren Ryker (DOWN, CROWBAR), the CD was said to be the band's "most varied effort so far." Using every stylistic device — from female vocals up to violins — and embedding it all in that typical CATHEDRAL brand of doom, "The Garden of Unearthly Delights" is a treat for every fan of the band, old and new alike. The follow-up to 2002's "The VIIth Coming" once again features the epic artwork of long-standing CATHEDRAL sleeve artist Dave Patchett.

CATHEDRAL Confirmed For UK's DAMNATION FESTIVAL

UK doom legends have been confirmed for the Damnation Festival 2008, set to take place Saturday, November 22 at England's Leeds University. Also newly added are progressive metallers DEVIL SOLD HIS SOUL and THE MIRIMAR DISASTER.

According the organizers, this year's festival has been expanded to a full three-stage, 3,500-capacity event.

Rock Sound magazine will sponsor the third stage with rising post-metal talent SHELS, LATITUDES and doom merchants RAMESSES taking the stage, with more to be announced.

Festival director Gavin McInally said: "With more tickets sold for this year's Damnation Festival in the first month than we managed in the whole of last year, it was a simple choice; lock out the fans, or take the plunge and add the huge 2,000-capacity refectory.

"Damnation Festival will now host three stages rammed with talent and we're delighted to welcome Rock Sound on board as our newest partners — they've been at the forefront of breaking bands for over a decade, and we pride ourselves on doing the same!"

The festival billing is shaping up as follows (in alphabetical order):

BENEDICTION
CARCASS
CATHEDRAL
DESECRATION
DEVIL SOLD HIS SOUL
LATITUDES
MY DYING BRIDE
NAPALM DEATH
ONSLAUGHT
PITCHSHIFTER
RAMESSES
SHELS
SIGH
TAINT
THE BERZERKER
THE MIRIMAR DISASTER

Tickets for Damnation are on sale now priced at £29 (subject to booking fee).

For more information, visit www.damnationfestival.co.uk.

NACHTMYSTIUM, CATHEDRAL, ELECTRIC WIZARD Confirmed For GUNFEST IN OSLO

NACHTMYSTIUM, CATHEDRAL and ELECTRIC WIZARD are among the confirmed bands for the Gunfest In Oslo festival, set to take place November 27-29, 2008 in Oslo, Norway.

The festival billing is shaping up as follows:

NACHTMYSTIUM
CATHEDRAL
ELECTRIC WIZARD
GRAND MAGUS
MUSTASCH
SEPPO GOES TO HOLOCAUST
WITCHCRAFT
GRAVEYARD
LONELY CAMEL
ANSUR
ÅRABROT
HAUST
GRIFTEGÅRD
SANCTUARY IN BLASPHEMY
TOMBSTONES
SIMMS-WATTS
HARPOONA
RWAKE
THE LAMP OF THOTH

More information will be made available soon.

CATHEDRAL: 'Earache Classic Series' Edition Of 'The Carnival Bizarre' To Include Bonus DVD

The newest entry into the Earache Classic Series is CATHEDRAL's breakthrough classic "The Carnival Bizarre". This is the album that made CATHEDRAL into the legends they are today. By combining their doom metal sound with stoner rock and further experimental elements, the band hit upon a formula that would elevate them up above every doom/stoner band of their day.

On this special Earache Classic Series edition of "The Carnival Bizarre", which is due on August 19, you get the tried and true original album containing favorites like "Vampire Sun", "Hopkins (The Witchfinder General)" and "Utopian Blaster" (featuring a guest appearance by BLACK SABBATH and HEAVEN AND HELL riffmaster Tony Iommi). In addition, you will also get a bonus DVD, "Our God Has Landed", featuring one of CATHEDRAL's earliest recorded shows from the 1992 "Gods Of Grind" tour and eight music videos spanning the band's nearly decade-long Earache career.

For more information, go to this location.

Album Of The Day-Cathedral-"Forest Of Equilibrium" (1991)

The Album Of The Day is "Forest Of Equilibrium" by Cathedral.



Review:

Along with the early material chronicled on In Memorium, Forest of Equilibrium remained an artifact of Cathedral's early gloom sound before they eventually evolved into one of the more exciting heavy metal bands of the mid-'90s. Still fresh from his infamous stint as the looming vocalist for the original and most notorious grindcore band ever, Napalm Death, vocalist Lee Dorrian teams up with the guitarist duo of Garry Jennings and Adam Lehan to create some of the most lumbering heavy metal ever heard. The group takes the grinding guitar tones of grindcore and slows them down to a nearly unbearable pace capable to either hypnotizing the listener or inducing sleep. While the two guitarists churn out their doomy guitar riffs, Dorrian does his best to balance the delicate line between singing lyrics with hints of harmony and emanating deathly growls from the depths of his dark soul. Besides the guitars and vocals, the songs themselves actually deserve some recognition despite their tendency to creep along at a sometimes tedious pace. "Ebony Tears" and "Funeral Request" in particular still stand as two of the group's more memorable songs even if this early sound has since been abandoned. In addition to these two songs, "Soul Sacrifice" deserves some notice as the one song to actually up the album's tempo towards mosh-friendly levels -- though it is much better performed on the succeeding Soul Sacrifice EP. The ultra-murky sound quality of Forest of Equilibrium also makes it a unique album far different from any of the group's other releases. Like the dense layers of compressed distortion that transform the group's guitar tones into monolithic waves of bone-shaking sound, the poor sound quality gives the album a surreal sense of dense, dusty murk that nearly eclipses the music with a shroud of disorientation. This album doesn't compare to later Cathedral albums such as The Carnival Bizarre in terms of artistry or consistent style, but it does possess an undeniable aura of dark gloom that these later albums can only hope to emulate with their increasingly clean sound and hints of joy. (Jason Birchmeier, AMG)

Track Listing:

01. "Pictures of Beauty & Innocence (Intro) / Comiserating the Celebration" – 11:16
02. "Ebony Tears" – 7:46
03. "Serpent Eve" – 7:40
04. "Soul Sacrifice" – 2:54
05. "A Funeral Request" – 9:17
06. "Equilibrium" – 6:08
07. "Reaching Happiness, Touching Pain" – 9:08

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