In 1989, the tomb doors creaked open. The sounds were unbearable, doom metal taken to an extreme: Brits CATHEDRAL had arrived with a monstrous debut, the classic Forest Of Equilibrium. Like all legends, they did things their own way and soon after that album, brought in boogie rock and disco-doom and made us all do a confused double take. They experimented with different sounds and tones, and always did things their own way, always having fun... or as much fun as doom metal allows. In 2001, after some of us had written them off as being just a bit too fun, they returned to the depths of sludgey doom with a horribly antagonistic album by the name of Endtyme, pleasing fans who enjoyed the first album's anti-musical tendencies. At one point there was a double studio album, just because. The masters of doom can do no wrong. It's been an incredible and delightful career, and now it ends. In 2013, the tomb doors will slam shut. The Last Spire is the last album. It's difficult to talk about it in terms of other albums. It has a production sound (clean enough, raw enough, somewhere between Forest and Endtyme); it has songs. They are Cathedral's last, and they spend lots of time crawling along to the end, while occasionally boosting up the tempos to something a bit more rump-shaking, fun in the way that a disco-doom funeral wake can be fun, sure. It's enjoyable in a morbid sense, and it's almost hard to comprehend: these are Cathedral's last songs. So enjoy every minute of this great doom album, enjoy it like it's the last new Cathedral album you'll ever sit back and crank on the headphones, because it is. The sound of death is slow and imminent and huge; it's a bit wry and a bit sly and a bit cheeky; it relishes in every sustained riff, every slow-motion drum beat, every tip of the hat to every doom institution found in the silences between the riffs all over the place on this album. The sound of death is here. The sound of death is now. It's been fun growing up with you, Cathedral. See you on the other side.