Cathedral - The Carnival Bizarre (1995)

This is by far the worst fucking Cathedral album there is, and believe me, that's not an easy decision to make as there are plenty of downright awful Cathedral albums to choose from, but here it is folks, the absolute cream of the crap.

First off, I'd like to say that as much of a letdown Cathedral's post-Forest of Equilibrium material has been, there have been a few instances that I've been able to enjoy what the band were up to despite their goofy misgivings. Both 'The Ethereal Mirror' and 'Endtyme' had enough heavy riffs and morbid atmosphere to balance things out a bit, of course ultimately I always end up pondering what might have been.

The Carnival Bizarre sees the gang travelling further down the rabbit hole (-aka- toilet bowl) as they gleefully dropkick any semblance of low tuning out of the window and concentrate on the more horrendously comical aspects that they had previously begun to employ on 'The Ethereal Mirror'. Despite how cringeworthy TEM could be at times, there were still some pretty bombastic grooves that kept it afloat. Here, there is nothing to save you from wanting to crawl up inside your own arse and die of shame for the band. The presence of Tony Iommi himself could not prevent Cathedral from diving headfirst into a sewer populated with bobbing turds as well as other bands who chose to abandon the path to greatness. TCB is a complete and utter failure and anyone who chooses to tell you otherwise deserves to be violently bitchslapped upside their clueless mug. Nuff said.