CATHEDRAL

CATHEDRAL
Biography

Cathedral were a British doom metal band based in Coventry. Lee Dorrian, who had left Napalm Death in 1989, conceived the band at the end of that year with Mark Griffiths, then a roadie for Carcass, and it got under way in 1990 with the former Acid Reign guitarist Garry Jennings. Their 1991 debut, Forest of Equilibrium, brought extreme slowness into an extreme metal scene that was racing for speed, and from there they widened their sound towards 1970s hard rock and progressive rock. With Dorrian and Jennings at the core they made ten studio albums, announced their split in 2011 and closed with The Last Spire in 2013. They visited Japan many times from the early 1990s, and their last Japanese show was at Shibuya CLUB QUATTRO in April 2011.

Formation and the demo (1989-1990)

Before he joined Napalm Death, Dorrian put on hardcore gigs around Coventry and made fanzines, and by his own account he never meant to be in a band at all (Blabbermouth, 2017). While he was still Napalm Death's singer he founded his own label, Rise Above Records, in 1988, starting with a few very limited hardcore punk 7-inches (Rise Above Records). He left Napalm Death in 1989 (Louder, 2024).

According to the band's own biography on their official site, Cathedral began at the end of 1989 at a Carcass show in Cardiff. Mark "Griff" Griffiths, who was working as a roadie for Carcass and running the gore projections behind them, talked with Dorrian about their love of Trouble, Pentagram, Black Sabbath, Saint Vitus and Candlemass, and after a good many beers they decided to form a doom band. Griff edited a fanzine devoted entirely to doom metal, Under The Oak, and had sold a copy to Garry "Gaz" Jennings at a Candlemass show. Jennings, the guitarist of the thrash band Acid Reign, had made a doom-thrash demo, Sorrow's Epitaph, under the name Morbid Doom, and had met Dorrian through Dan Lilker of Nuclear Assault (official site; Louder, 2024).

The first rehearsal took place in March 1990, with Griff on rhythm guitar, Jennings on lead guitar and Andy Baker, formerly of Sacrilege and the Varukers, on drums. Baker had little enthusiasm for songs that slow and was replaced by Ben Mochrie, a drummer from Coventry's hardcore bands. With no bassist to be found, Griff moved to bass, and because they wanted the twin guitars of early Trouble, Adam Lehan, who had taken Jennings's place in Acid Reign, joined just before the first demo was recorded (official site; Louder, 2024). The members lived in Coventry, Harrogate and Liverpool, so they wrote by sending each other cassettes of riffs. Dorrian remembers that their early rehearsal room was next to Black Sabbath's, and that they sometimes pressed their ears to the wall instead of rehearsing (Decibel, 2021).

In October 1990 the band issued their self-financed cassette demo, In Memorium, through the newly started Rise Above Records (Rise Above Records; official site). Tours followed with Saint Vitus, Morbid Angel, the Young Gods and Cranes, though Dorrian recalls that on the first, with Saint Vitus in 1990, eight people paid to get in at Oxford (official site; Decibel, 2021).

Forest of Equilibrium (1991)

Labels including Peaceville and Roadrunner showed interest, and a review of the demo in CMJ made the band something of a hot topic, but they chose Earache Records, run by Dig Pearson, who had worked with Dorrian in Napalm Death (Decibel, 2021). By early 1991 they had no drummer, so Dorrian wrote to Mike Smail of Penance, who lived in Pittsburgh, and brought him over. In July 1991 they recorded their debut, Forest of Equilibrium, at Workshop Studios in Redditch, England (Decibel, 2006). The sessions took about two weeks, with Dorrian's old friend Steve Gurney helping out as engineer (Louder, 2024).

The cover painting is by Dave Patchett. Walking through Coventry's city centre, Dorrian saw Patchett's work in the window of a gallery showing local artists and left his address in the guest book; a note came back the next day, and it turned out that Patchett lived in the next block of flats to his (Decibel, 2021). Patchett went on painting the band's covers, and the official site called him the band's unofficial extra member (official site). Sources disagree on the month of release: October 1991 in one (Louder, 2024), December in others (Rise Above Records; Decibel, 2021). In February 2006 Decibel inducted the album into its Hall of Fame as the twelfth entry (Decibel, 2006).

The Columbia years (1992-1994)

In 1992 Mark Ramsey Wharton, another former member of Acid Reign, joined on drums, and the band recorded the Soul Sacrifice EP, which leaned towards 1970s hard rock. That year they toured with Carcass, Entombed and Confessor on the Gods of Grind tour, whose London Astoria show of 18 March later appeared on video (official site). Around this time, through a licence deal with Earache Records, the band signed to the American major label Columbia Records (Decibel, 2024). Adam Lehan says that without that deal they could not have afforded to tour the United States. On the Campaign for Musical Destruction tour, two months in North America with Napalm Death, Carcass and Brutal Truth, nobody in Cathedral could drive, so Brutal Truth, who shared their van, did the driving (Decibel, 2020). Griff left after the tour (official site).

The second album, The Ethereal Mirror, was recorded at the Manor, the studio of Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells and the Sex Pistols' Never Mind the Bollocks, to give Columbia the big sound it wanted. Dorrian recalls the producer telling them they could not play, and the songs were not ready (Metal Hammer, 2013). With no permanent bassist, Jennings played the bass. The working title in the studio was Decadence (official site), and the Japanese edition of June 1993 was titled Decadence (Tower Records). Dorrian wanted something darker and more extreme, while the others were keen on the band's new ability to rock (Decibel, 2024).

After the album came a European tour with Sleep and Penance and then the band's first shows in Japan, with Brutal Truth. According to the official site, those dates were the last with Mike Hickey, the live bassist since 1992, and Scott Carlson of Repulsion took his place; Carlson himself remembers joining before The Ethereal Mirror came out. At Columbia's wish the band then opened a long tour for Mercyful Fate, were asked to leave after several incidents and left the tour in Florida, and a couple of months later toured the United States with Fight. Lehan and Wharton left after a show in New York on 7 December 1993 (official site; Blabbermouth, 2018; Noisecreep, 2013).

On the 1994 EP Statik Majik, a single track, "The Voyage of the Homeless Sapien", took up half of its forty minutes. Columbia wanted to replace it with something easier to sell, the band refused, and in America the EP came out as Cosmic Requiem, with a different cover and one track changed (official site). Next came an offer to support Black Sabbath on a European tour, which they played with help from Victor Griffin and Joe Hasselvander of Pentagram. When Griffin went home early, Tony Iommi told them on their first night with a single guitar that they sounded much better, and the official site suggests this is why the band stayed a four-piece from then on (official site).

Barry Stern of Trouble, who like Carlson lived in Chicago, helped out on drums for a while, playing shows in Britain and festivals in Belgium, France and Sweden. The band then tried out Dave Hornyak, another Chicago drummer and a friend of Carlson's, with Dorrian and Jennings spending about a month in Chicago working on new songs, and towards the end of the year Hornyak and Carlson came to England for a few shows and a five-song demo. Just before Christmas, though, their American A&R man phoned to say that Columbia no longer wanted to work with the band, and keeping two members in America became impossible (official site). Dorrian later said it had been uncomfortable to go from underground band to being presented by Columbia as the next Black Crowes (Noisecreep, 2013).

The four-piece (1995-2001)

Down to Dorrian and Jennings, the band found drummer Brian Dixon and bassist Leo Smee through auditions (official site). The four of them recorded the third album, The Carnival Bizarre, at Parkgate Studios in Hastings in 1995, and Tony Iommi played guitar solos on "Utopian Blaster" (official site; Louder, 2024). In 2013 Dorrian named Iommi's appearance among the high points of the band's career (Noisecreep). The album was followed by tours of Europe with Crowbar, Scandinavia with Motörhead, and Britain and Australia with Paradise Lost, and by a return to Japan. On the next EP, Hopkins (The Witchfinder General), they covered "Fire" by the Crazy World of Arthur Brown (official site).

With so much touring there was no time to prepare, and Supernatural Birth Machine was recorded in 1996 in the same studio exactly a year after its predecessor, after a single week of preparation. Dorrian was writing lyrics just before they were recorded, and later said that not one song on the album had been rehearsed even once; asked to produce a whole album's lyrics in a week, he even tried to quit (official site; Metal Hammer, 2013). Earache's American office released the US edition in new packaging without telling the band (official site).

Tours followed, with My Dying Bride in Europe, return trips to Japan and Australia, and shows in Greece among other places, but label contracts then kept the band from releasing anything for a while. After an appearance at the Dynamo festival in 1998 the fifth album, Caravan Beyond Redemption, was finished (official site). First due in October 1998, it came out in January 1999, first in Japan on the 21st and then in Britain on Earache the same month (Earache; Toy's Factory). For this album they toured Europe with Orange Goblin and Terra Firma, and Japan with Orange Goblin (official site).

Feeling that the songs were becoming too polished and drifting away from real heaviness, Dorrian told the others that unless the next album was the heaviest they had made, he would seriously consider leaving. He says the result, Endtyme in 2001, completely destroyed everything they had done up to then and was almost like starting over (Metal Hammer, 2013), and the official site called it quite possibly the band at their heaviest so far (official site). It also ended ten years with Earache, and the band toured Europe and Japan with Hangnail, a Rise Above band (official site).

New labels (2002-2010)

After Earache the band signed to Dream Catcher Records, wrote in a rehearsal room in Liverpool from early 2002 and released their seventh album, The VIIth Coming (official site). The Japanese edition came out on Toy's Factory (Tower Records). Dorrian felt that the heaviness won back on Endtyme slipped away again, but having just got his way on that album, he kept quiet (Metal Hammer, 2013). In October 2004 they were main support on HIM's UK tour, and the same year brought The Serpent's Gold, a two-disc collection of Earache-era favourites and unreleased songs (Blabbermouth).

After The VIIth Coming the band went through a long spell of working out whether they wanted to go on at all; Dorrian says he was not tired of being in a band but of fighting to be in one (Metal Hammer, 2013). For the eighth album, The Garden of Unearthly Delights, in 2005, they moved to the German label Nuclear Blast, with Warren Riker, known for his work with Down, producing. Its crowning piece is the twenty-seven-minute "The Garden", and "Corpsecycle" and "North Berwick Witch Trials" stayed in the live set to the very end (Rise Above Records). Dorrian later said that the band could easily have ended before that album was recorded (The Quietus, 2011). No new album followed until 2010, and some wondered whether Cathedral would come back at all (Rise Above Records).

The ninth album, The Guessing Game, in March 2010, was the band's first double album, again produced by Warren Riker (Blabbermouth). Dorrian and Jennings first wrote a whole album of slow, heavy songs in the manner of the debut, then threw it out as something they had already done, and brought progressive rock, psychedelia and folk to the front instead (The Obelisk, 2010). It includes "Requiem for the Voiceless", a song about animal rights, and "Funeral of Dreams", sung with Alison O'Donnell of the 1970s Irish folk rock band Mellow Candle, and it uses Mellotron and sitar (Blabbermouth; official site).

On 3 December 2010 the band held a twentieth-anniversary concert at the O2 Academy Islington in London. The line-up that had recorded Forest of Equilibrium came back together to play the album in full for the first time, followed by a set of favourites from the current line-up. Many fans could not reach London because of bad weather and disrupted transport (official site; Rise Above Records; Decibel, 2020).

The end (2011-2013)

In February 2011 the band announced that they would stop playing live at the end of that year and make one last studio album, due the following year. Dorrian said that twenty-one years was a very long time and that coming this far was almost a miracle (Blabbermouth). In May he added that there would be no tour for the final album (The Quietus, 2011).

2011, announced as the band's last year on stage, brought bookings at Shinsaibashi CLUB QUATTRO in Osaka on 19 April, Shibuya CLUB QUATTRO in Tokyo on 20 April and the Maryland Deathfest in the United States (Blabbermouth; Creativeman; Metropolis). The band withdrew from Hammer of Doom in Germany, planned for October, because another band on the bill used animal blood in its stage show (Blabbermouth). Also in May it was announced that they would leave the stage for good after a show at the Forum in Kentish Town, London, on 3 December, with Grand Magus and Comus on the bill (The Quietus). Even so, in an interview reported in December 2011 Dorrian said they would spend a solid month finishing the songs for the last album once they were back from Australia, and planned to start recording in April (Blabbermouth, 2011), and in 2013 he looked back on final tours of Australia, Brazil and the Maryland Deathfest as a real pleasure (Noisecreep). The very last show came in Perth, Australia, in March 2012 (Brave Words, 2013).

In November 2011 Rise Above released Anniversary, a double album of the twentieth-anniversary concert, and A New Ice Age, a 12-inch with two new songs (Rise Above Records; Tower Records). The final album, The Last Spire, was recorded at Orgone Studios in London and produced by Dorrian and Jennings themselves with Jaime Gomez Arellano's help. Scott Carlson returned on bass, and David Moore played Hammond organ and Mellotron. Rise Above released it on 29 April 2013 (Blabbermouth). Dorrian called it the album he had wanted to make ever since the first, as though they had made their second album last (Rise Above Records), and "Tower of Silence", in which Rosalie Cunningham of Purson lays a black orchid on each member's grave, became the band's last music video (Blabbermouth).

Explaining why the band ended, Dorrian said that keeping it going had always been a fight and they no longer wanted to fight, and that it was something they had been thinking about for years; announcing the end early gave them time to enjoy it (Noisecreep, 2013). When he raised it with Jennings, Jennings largely agreed (Metal Hammer, 2013).

Afterwards

In 2013 Dorrian ruled out a reunion despite large offers (Noisecreep), and in 2020 he still doubted it, saying they had ended the band for a reason (Decibel). He went on running Rise Above Records and started the band Septic Tank with Jennings and Carlson, whose first London show was booked for 3 May 2013 (Blabbermouth, 2012). In 2014 he formed With the Dead with Tim Bagshaw and Mark Greening, the founding rhythm section of Electric Wizard (Blabbermouth, 2015), later joined on bass by Leo Smee (Blabbermouth, 2017). Jennings went on to play in Death Penalty and Lucifer (Tower Records), and Lehan and Wharton in Workshed, formed in 2014 (Rise Above Records).

In 2020 the two sets of the anniversary concert came out separately on Rise Above as the double LPs Return to the Forest and Freak Winter (Decibel, 2020). In 2025 Rise Above released "Society's Pact With Satan", a thirty-minute piece recorded at the very end of the Last Spire sessions and then forgotten without ever being mixed, until producer Jaime Gomez Arellano came across it while sorting through old recordings and the band agreed to release it (Rise Above Records). The Japanese edition followed in May 2026 on Trooper Entertainment, with the Japanese word for despair added to its title (Tower Records). In 2026, with the rights back with the band, Rise Above announced The Guessing Game (Rethink), a full remix of The Guessing Game from the original masters by Gomez Arellano, for release on 30 October 2026 (Rise Above Records).

The members

Only two members stayed from the beginning to the end: Lee Dorrian on vocals and Garry Jennings on guitar (official site; Blabbermouth). The line-up of the final album, The Last Spire, was those two with Brian Dixon on drums and Scott Carlson on bass, with David Moore on keyboards on the recording (Blabbermouth). Dixon and the bassist Leo Smee joined for The Carnival Bizarre in 1995 (Louder, 2024), and Smee can be placed in the band as late as the twentieth-anniversary concert of December 2010 (Rise Above Records).

Former members are Mark "Griff" Griffiths, on rhythm guitar and then bass from the start until after the 1992 North American tour; the guitarist Adam Lehan, who joined just before the first demo and stayed until December 1993; the first drummers Andy Baker and Ben Mochrie; Mike Smail, who played drums on Forest of Equilibrium; and Mark Ramsey Wharton, the drummer from 1992 to December 1993. Others who played with the band include Mike Hickey, live bassist in 1992 and 1993; Victor Griffin and Joe Hasselvander of Pentagram on the Black Sabbath tour; Barry Stern of Trouble on drums at live shows; and Dave Hornyak, the drummer on a demo of new songs. Carlson first played bass live around the time of The Ethereal Mirror, at a point the sources give differently, and left when the Columbia deal ended (official site; Blabbermouth, 2018).

Discography

The ten studio albums in order of first release. The label is the British one; where the American or Japanese label differs, the notes say so. Beyond these there are the demo In Memorium (1990); the EPs Soul Sacrifice (1992), Twylight Songs (1993), Statik Majik (1994, released in the United States as Cosmic Requiem) and Hopkins (The Witchfinder General) (1995); the 7-inch Gargoylian (2001, Southern Lord); the 12-inch A New Ice Age (2011); and Society's Pact With Satan (2025), a single thirty-minute track. The Guessing Game (Rethink) (Rise Above Records, 30 October 2026) is The Guessing Game remixed in full from the original masters, with alternate takes and unedited versions. The compilations are Statik Majik / Soul Sacrifice (1999), which puts the two EPs on one disc, and The Serpent's Gold (2004), two discs covering the Earache years. On video there are Our God Has Landed (Live in Tokyo) (1998), filmed in Tokyo and released in Japan, and Our God Has Landed (1999, with the promo videos; on DVD in 2001); live releases are Anniversary (2011), from the twentieth-anniversary concert, and its two halves on LP, Return to the Forest and Freak Winter (2020) (official site; Rise Above Records; Blabbermouth; Tower Records).

Released	Title	Label	Notes
1991	Forest of Equilibrium	Earache	Debut; drums by Mike Smail
1993	The Ethereal Mirror	Earache (Columbia in the United States)	Jennings also on bass; titled Decadence in Japan
1995	The Carnival Bizarre	Earache	First with Dixon and Smee; Tony Iommi on "Utopian Blaster"
1996	Supernatural Birth Machine	Earache	Recorded a year after its predecessor in the same studio
1999	Caravan Beyond Redemption	Earache	The Japanese edition came out first, on 21 January 1999
2001	Endtyme	Earache	The last album for Earache
2002	The VIIth Coming	Dream Catcher (Spitfire in the United States)	Japanese edition on Toy's Factory
2005	The Garden of Unearthly Delights	Nuclear Blast	Includes the 27-minute "The Garden"
2010	The Guessing Game	Nuclear Blast	The band's first double album
2013	The Last Spire	Rise Above Records (Metal Blade in North America)	The final album; Japanese edition on Trooper Entertainment

Concerts in Japan

In Japan, Forest of Equilibrium was issued in February 1992 under a Japanese title, and most of the Japanese editions after it came out under the Earache and Toy's Factory names up to The Garden of Unearthly Delights in 2005; from The Guessing Game in 2010 they came out on Trooper Entertainment (Tower Records; official site). Many of the Japanese editions carried bonus tracks (official site). According to the official site, the band first played Japan with Brutal Truth after The Ethereal Mirror, and the Japanese edition of Statik Majik includes live recordings marked "live in japan '93"; they came back after The Carnival Bizarre, with Orange Goblin on the Caravan Beyond Redemption tour and with Hangnail on the Endtyme tour. Their show at ON AIR EAST in Tokyo on 13 April 1997 was released in Japan on video in 1998 as Our God Has Landed (Live in Tokyo) (official site; Tower Records). In 2006 they played LOUD PARK 06, and in April 2011, four and a half years later, two shows of their own were booked, at Shinsaibashi CLUB QUATTRO in Osaka on the 19th and Shibuya CLUB QUATTRO in Tokyo on the 20th; Creativeman's announcement counted six earlier visits (Creativeman). Dorrian had been unsure whether to come so soon after the Great East Japan Earthquake, but the Tokyo hall was packed, and Metropolis's review presents the night as the close of the band's career in Japan (Metropolis). The Japanese label's notes for the 2026 release date the first visit to 1994 instead, and count seven Japanese tours in all (Tower Records).

Date	Venue	Show
3 August 1993	Club Citta', Kawasaki (Kanagawa)	First visit to Japan, with Brutal Truth
13 April 1997	ON AIR EAST, Shibuya (Tokyo)	Filmed for Our God Has Landed (Live in Tokyo)
11 June 1999	BIGCAT, Shinsaibashi (Osaka)	With Orange Goblin
12 June 1999	ON AIR EAST, Shibuya (Tokyo)	With Orange Goblin
13 June 1999	ON AIR EAST, Shibuya (Tokyo)	With Orange Goblin
30 May 2001	ON AIR EAST, Shibuya (Tokyo)	CATHEDRAL JAPAN TOUR 2001, with Hangnail
31 May 2001	BIGCAT, Shinsaibashi (Osaka)	CATHEDRAL JAPAN TOUR 2001, with Hangnail
14 October 2006	Makuhari Messe (Chiba)	LOUD PARK 06
19 April 2011	Shinsaibashi CLUB QUATTRO (Osaka)	Their first headline show since LOUD PARK 06
20 April 2011	Shibuya CLUB QUATTRO (Tokyo)	Their last show in Japan

About the sources

This page is based on the band's official site, cathedralcoven.com (the 2004 and 2010 biographies, the release list and each release's page, as kept by the Internet Archive); the band page and release pages of Lee Dorrian's label, Rise Above Records; Tower Records' and CDJournal's product data and label notes for the Japanese editions; Decibel; Louder (Metal Hammer and others); Blabbermouth.net; Noisecreep; The Quietus (as kept by the Internet Archive); The Obelisk; the Tokyo English-language magazine Metropolis; and Creativeman's page announcing the 2011 Japanese shows. The English and Japanese Wikipedia were used only as a starting point, and every fact taken from them was checked against one of these sources. Where sources disagree, as on the month of release of the debut, the text says so.