Endtyme

Cathedral's sixth album was their last for Earache. The line-up is unchanged, and the producer was Billy Anderson, known for his work with Sleep and Orange Goblin; it was recorded and mixed at Chapel Studios in Lincolnshire between 17 July and 6 August 2000. After Caravan Beyond Redemption, Dorrian told the others he would think seriously about leaving unless the next record was the heaviest they had ever made, and he fought them to strip the sound back down. He felt the band had been sliding into a parody of itself, the eccentrics in flares who sounded like Black Sabbath. The title, he said, was a sarcastic answer to the apocalyptic talk that surrounded the millennium. "Whores to Oblivion" was his favourite track, and its closing noise is a computer piece by his friend Russell Haswell. "Templars Arise! (The Return)" draws on the second of the 1970s Tombs of the Blind Dead horror films. The first edition out was Toy's Factory's in Japan, on 21 February 2001, with the extra track "Gargoylian" and a cover painted for Japan by Dave Patchett; Earache's edition followed in Britain on 26 February with a sleeve by Stephen O'Malley. It reached number 31 on the UK Rock & Metal Albums Chart. That May the band toured Japan with Hangnail, playing ON AIR EAST in Tokyo and BIGCAT in Osaka.