The Carnival Bizarre

By the time this album was made, Cathedral had nearly fallen apart. Adam Lehan and Mark Ramsey Wharton played their last show in December 1993, two members of Pentagram stood in for a European support tour with Black Sabbath the next year, and a line-up with two Chicago-based members had just demoed new songs when Columbia ended the deal in December 1994. Without the major's money the Americans could not be kept, which left Lee Dorrian and Garry Jennings on their own. Auditions brought in bassist Leo Smee and drummer Brian Dixon, and within a week the new band was on tour. The four rehearsed in an old house in Devon, where producer Kit Woolven joined them, and then had about two weeks at Parkgate Studios to record and mix. Dorrian said the previous record had been polished but had not caught the band, while this one kept the nervous energy of a new line-up and sounded almost live. Tony Iommi, by then a friend, plays on "Utopian Blaster": he came in one day, recorded about ten solos and a few riffs, told them to take their pick and left. "Hopkins (The Witchfinder General)" owes more to the band Witchfinder General than to the film, and is sung from the witch's side. "Night of the Seagulls" is about the Templars of a 1970s horror film, a subject Cathedral had wanted to write about since they started. Dave Patchett painted the cover once more, from Dorrian's idea: two central figures with the faces of Mary and Jesus and bodies like corpses, the moon on one side and the sun on the other, which Dorrian said was all about submission to religion. Earache released the album in Britain in September 1995 and it reached No. 14 on the UK's Official Rock & Metal Albums Chart; Toy's Factory's Japanese edition of 1 October 1995 added "Karmacopia" for eleven tracks.