Customer Reviews

Carnival Bizarre (W/Dvd)

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This album is what doom metal is all about..Grinding heavy riffs coupled with psychedelic acid trip lyrics guaranteed to melt your pagan mind.From the album's opener Vampire Sun to its closer,this record just doesn't stop grinding and lurching along in its Sabbath-worshipping glory,including Tony Iommi on the third song Utopian Blaster..The sludgy Night of the Seagulls was the album's crowning achievement to this doomhead,but there's not a downer to be had in any of this record's ten cuts.To be honest,Hopkins(Witchfinder General)is about as catchy as you can get and should have been the song that broke them through to the mainstream the way Smells Like Teen Spitit broke Nirvana through to the record buying masses. this record is nothing short of a masterpiece and should be in any doomsters collection,not to mention any metalhead,goth or grunger's.Go out,buy this album,and pray that Cathedral grace your presence with a live performance the way they did mine in 2003,and get yer friggin head blown right the hell off..Shake yer butt Lee..shake it fer all your worth..

I thought that Cathedral was done after they released "The Ethereal Mirror".....I was seriously mistaken.

This CD cranks with maximum neck-breaking riffs, and a sound that will take you off into another world. I love this CD!!

Go Buy It!!!

10 for 10. not a bad tune on this bad boy. i have all cathedral except the way too slow equilibrim, and as soon as they speeded there sound up they won me over. 1st song vampire sun is beyond excellent a metal cruncher with great choruses. witchfinder general with voice overs from dead vincent price makes you feel like your hunting witches a powerhouse of a tune. utopian blaster with the sabs tony iommi riffing a little make the first three songs (gacy, manson, and bundy) real killers-they stomp and mash with deadly intent. night of the seagulls slows the tempo down but the sonic blast is still there cracking your skull. title track carnival bizarre is my second favorite catedral tune ever (voodoo fire) with outstanding chrous and singing. inertias cave really ploughs your brains and its got a nasty groove. fangalatic supergoria gets better the longer the song goes on and eventually grabs your jugular until you submit. blue light is very lightweight cathedral but still hits the cerebellum in a positive way. palace of fallen majesty also gets stronger the longer it goes. electric grave like the sabs electric funeral just kicks ass so hard youll need help getting out of the pit youve been diven into. another one of my top ten cathedral songs. and just cause theres 10 songs dont think your getting 40 minutes of crunching music oh no theres over 60. we all miss original sabbath but these guys are damn good and guarenteed to melt your metal mind

This album takes the Sabbath template and makes it about as evil as it can get almost from beginning to end, making it a quintessential classic of doom metal, right up there with Cathedral's best albums, _The Ethereal Mirror_ and _Forest of Equilibrium_, and other giants of the genre like Venom et al. Cathedral do this through processing sludge and low-end in as many ways possible along with some excellent lead playing from Gaz Jennings, thrilling and pounding drumming from Brian Dixon, and, of course, shrill and evil grunting/screaming courtesy of Lee Dorrian, one of metal's poet laureates. The whole affair winds down near the end; if they had left the last three songs off of this CD, it would have been the perfect metal CD and would be worthy of five stars.

That aside, we have seven songs and almost fifty minutes of unalloyed scintillatronic metal! Let's dig deep into this slab of evil to see how they do it: "Vampire Sun," Sabbath sludge pure and simple with such improbable lyrics as "Monolithic angel/ unveil your king this planet disabled/ mummify the cosmos/ with the vision of divinity yeah!" "Hopkins (The Witchfinder General)" is one of the best Cathedral has ever done, a song about witches getting it on with the Father of Lies, replete with demonic pentatonic shredding from Jennings. Any self-respecting metalhead should interiorize this song: 'Nuf said.

"Utopian Blaster" features a guest appearance by the Father of it all: I mean besides Old Nick, it's none other than Tony Iommi (who really may be the Antichrist after all--the jury's still in). With the Sabbath guru at the helm here, you'll never hear a better grind. This song is a perfect example of the crossroads they were at with this CD. They still had some of the sludgy elements that they mined extensively on _Forest of Equilibrium_, but there is also an attitude that makes it verge on hair metal, albeit of an evil sort. This is their last great record before they delved even deeper into hairdom with the disappointing _Supernatural Birth Machine_. This song represents them at the top of their game.

And they stay at the top heading into the creepy "Night of the Seagulls." This song about history gone horrific is about the fabled Knights Templar (yeah, the ones in _DaVinci Code_) wandering through eternity thirsty for blood. This is Cathedral at their slow best and Lee Dorrian has never sounded more possessed than on this one.

The title track is one of the more histrionic pieces Cathedral ever composed and also features one of their catchiest choruses, tho' of the kind that could never make any pop chart: "Carnival bizarre/ freaks and lepers step right up/ circus of macabre/ all the devils are rockin hard." Stupid? F**k yeah! But that perfect metal stupidity that makes you want to do headbanging against an iron door and explode all your neurons. Any seasoned doom lover knows precisely what I mean.

"Inertia's Cave" has one of the most punishing and twisting riffs ever concocted in metal and a bunch more nonsense from Dorrian's mouth. We head into "Fangalactic Supergoria," where the album crests and then falls off a cliff. "Blue Light" and "Palace of Fallen Majesty" try unsuccesfully to be atmospheric while "Electric Grave" is more or less an interminable and largely boring solo from Jennings, a little bit too faithful an homage to Sabbath.

If you stop it after the seventh song, you've got yourself one of the sexiest slabs of satan ever served up to the masses and that's no small shakes. Get your hand on a used copy of this one and hope that Earache re-releases this one soon, hopefully with some bonuses.

"The Carnival Bizarre" is a truly awesome album by one of the greatest heavy metal groups of our time. Called "A Black Sabbath for the nineties," these four guys can spin a tale of witchcraft and destruction that leaves the listener begging for more. In short, if you like heavy metal with an eerie vibe, don't hesitate. Just buy it!!

Cathedral were sadly overlooked in the 1990s while lumpen dirge like Korn, Limp Bizkit and Linkin Park soared to popularity. This album demonstrates why Cathedral are better than any of them. There's no brattish whining or juvenile ranting, instead you get powerful rock played by a band for whom inane posturing isn't even a consideration. This is great heavy metal of the highest order and comes highly recommended. Vampire Sun and Hopkins (Witchfinder General) are a great starting point for anyone new to the band.

Cathedral may not be a household name, but they are a fantastic "secret" for those of us lucky enough to have discovered them. Great album!

A truly wonderful Cathedral release. "Vampire Sun" starts off with "Are you high?" just like Ozzy did in live shows with Black Sabbath. The song stomps and writhes with a great freakin' riff pileage, but eventually just drones on without hitting its rock. "Hopkins (The Witchfinder General)" is a song inspired by the Vincent Price film and samples him (Cathedral also adores an older band, who took their name from the film, called Witchfinder General); it's true stoner insanity and has great riff, great vocals, it's just all-around amazing. The song is fun with lots of dynamic vocals as interesting as the guitars. Lee Dorrian uses his voice like an instrument in the same way that Mike Patton of Faith No More does, only in a less theatrical fashion. "Utopian Blaster" is a cool-o song with a great title that the band did with one of the real rock greats, Tony Iommi, on guitar. The song has supreme riffage and a good groove and powerful presence, great mini-solos, long solos, and strange vocal passages. "Night of the Seagulls" is menacing and scary and just builds on very broad riffs and scary thoughts and images, including spooky guitar sounds and weird groanings at the end that don't come from seagulls! "Carnival Bizarre" is a great rocker full of slashing riffs that just go all over the place, and Lee Dorrian is full of spit and venom. The song has interesting prog rock passages - a phaser guitar/vocal section, and a hockey arena organ-like verse, then the obligatory guitar solo. Beauty way to go, eh?!? "Intertias Cave" is a good ole rocker that incorporated the riff from Moby Dick (wise-asses) that has some sweet singalong melodies. "Fangalacticus Supergoria" is a truly freaked out song with mighty vocals, on top of a really screaming metal song. The shrieking and wailing is quite unholy. Wow!

The CD is accompanied with a DVD that has eight promo videos (two of which, "Ride" and "Magic Mountain" are also on the "The Ethereal Mirror" DVD), and a concert video from 1992. In the concert video, Lee says "The lyrics are a bit negative, but in a positive way." There's a strange stoned interlude between the videos, and it's all good fun to see the boys looking young and energetic and with full heads of hair. The band plays "Soul Sacrifice", "Equilibrium", "Autumn Twilight", "Frozen Rapture" and "A Funeral Request." Each song is a bonanza of lights and freakouts, and there's hair flying everywhere. We don't see any audience shots, but it was probably a sea of people in the dark. There are lots of coloured stage lights, so although there were a lot of lights there's not a lot of brightness and it was a spooky stage.

The Promo videos are great:

"Ebony Tears" in a graveyard, the band wearing crosses, Motorhead t-shirt, spider, treetops, a burial and a wedding."

"Autumn Twilight" is just the band playing the song, pretty straight. Gaz plays a Gibson SG now.

"Cosmic Funeral" shows the band as monks in robes. It's ballad-like, but then Lee shouts "Disco supernova!" and it gets better, the video is full of strobe.

"Stained Glass Horizon" shows a road warrior climbing dusty hills in some sort of post-apocalyptic world. THere's a crap solo that turns psychedelic, then becomes murderously good and heavy.

"Black Sunday" shows clips from the band's touring up until that point, with all the various members, there's toking, they feed beer to a horse, they are in Sydney, and they play on Motorhead's stage. Very good psychedelic passage, it's a great song.

"Hopkins (Witchfinder General)" is a fun video, with clips of the "Witchfinder General" movie of 1968, starring Vincent Price interspersed throughout. The band is wearing disco clothes and Lee is cavorting with a shapely black model in lingerie and a pentagram painted on her forehead. The band plays through Orange stacks.

This album is very heavy doom and cool. All the songs have rhythm and are all indeed very good. Especially the first 5 songs are amazing. I recommend this album to anyone who likes metal.

I am not elequent with words so I will not bore you with a review. Just wanted potentional buyers to beware that the advertising is incorrect for this product on this site.

I had frist heard of Cathedral when I sent for a Earache Sampler cassette.I thought they were quite good."The Carnival Bizarre" is another fine album espically featuring Tony Iommi on "Utopian Blaster"."Hopkins(Witchfinder General)" is a favorite song I love.The DVD is great too.I had never had a chance to get it when it came out("Our God has Landed").The 8 Videos are fun to watch and seeing the band in concert(The earlier lineup)is enjoyable.I had to play my DVD in the computer(It did'nt work in my DVD player).I do like Cathedral with Doomy Sabbath Stoner metal type sound which makes it sound so good.This cd is a part of their Earache's Classic Underground Metal Series which is a Limited Edtion.Wise to get it before it goes out of print If you're not familar with their artists like Napalm Death,Entombed,Carcass etc.