By Vinnie Apicella

"In Memoriam" unlocks the door of the past for these legendary purveyors of doom… The original leaders of the black masses famous for their needle burying style and painfully slow dirges, haunting incantations and thick slabs of chilling guitar riffs… Cathedral was much the modern day Sabbath in every sense imaginable. Here we return to the grave site where it all began. "In Memoriam" captures them at their absolute worst, in a time when their darkside knew no boundaries, Lee Dorian and the rest of his original followers discover past remains of rotting body parts stuffed beneath the surface ages ago and finally dug up in the form of four excruciatingly painful studio tracks, and five live (barely) led by the tearfully moving "Mourning of a New Day" where even the most unrepentant of sinners will pray for the end. The latter half of "In Memoriam" finds them extolling an infectious aural plague to what once could have been considered a perfectly contented Dutch people, now sadly shielded by a black cloak forever hidden from the sun since 1991's first sightings of this fateful presence. Anyone out of the loop recently, may hardly recognize what once were excessively barbaric and extremely torturous pieces, which to the naked ear sound like one long satanically inspired message, ritually similar to the act of playing the record backwards.

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