Caravan Beyond Redemption

Cathedral's fifth album keeps the line-up of the previous record, Lee Dorrian, Garry Jennings, Leo Smee and Brian Dixon, and brings in Andy Sneap as producer. It was recorded at Chapel Studios in Lincolnshire, where the band would make Endtyme too. Toy's Factory, the band's Japanese label, said they had learned from the rushed predecessor and taken their time over the arrangements, which gave the songs more depth. The album was first expected in October 1998 but arrived only in the new year. Dorrian later felt they had overdone it: too much time spent, too many different things tried, and three or four songs too many. Two of the songs come from films. "Captain Clegg" began with a magazine cover spotted in a London shop and tells of the Hammer character who is a village vicar by day and a smuggler by night, and "The Omega Man" takes the film of that name and sends its hero a million years backwards and forwards in time. The first edition out was Toy's Factory's in Japan, on 21 January 1999, with the extra track "Black Sunday", and Earache issued it in Britain the same month. It reached number 13 on the UK Rock & Metal Albums Chart, and Kerrang! made it LP of the Week. That June the band came to Japan with Orange Goblin for three shows, at BIGCAT in Osaka and ON AIR EAST in Tokyo.