Cathedral – Society’s Pact With Satan (EP)
Release Date: 3rd October 2025
Label: Rise Above Records
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Genre: Doom
FFO: Black Sabbath, Witchfinder General, Saint Vitus, Electric Wizard, Conan, With the Dead.
Review By: Magnus Rotås
There is still no band like Cathedral, their style was so incredibly unique, mixing in a lot of psychedelia and stoner elements into their Sabbath influenced doom to create a twisted, deranged, quirky and most importantly heavy sound. I say “was” because in 2013 the band split up, and the world thought that was the last we were ever gonna see of one of metal’s most legendary doom bands.
You can then imagine what a surprise it is to see them back from the grave with a new song after 12 years. Not just any song, but a 30-minute epic called Society’s Pact With Satan! Or “new” isn’t quite right, as this was apparently the last ever recording made by the band, back in 2012. It was recorded at the end of the sessions for their swan song album; 2013’s ‘The Last Spire’. For some reason, the 30-minute track was not mixed at the time, thus pretty much forgotten about by everyone involved, until now!
Cathedral is a band you just got to respect, as they never made any compromises, and always stayed true to their vision. While their style changed a bit over the years, it was all undoubtedly Cathedral through and through. They never seemed to age, sounding just as vital and fresh on their last record as they did on their first. So, you are probably dying to know; will Society’s Pact With Satan be a worthy finale to their career?
As soon as you hit play on this EP you are hit with the sounds of ten insane asylums combined in a lengthy atmospheric intro. After two minutes the guitar comes in and already your stank-face comes right on as you are slowly nodding to the groove of the incredibly heavy down-tuned guitar. But then right before the 4-minute mark, something happens that derails the entire opening of the track. The guitar fades and in comes a pipe organ…the transition into this part was just horrendous, but on top of that Lee Dorian’s vocals comes in, and his singing is way too staccato, with way too much reverb. It’s almost shocking how disjointed this part of the track sounds. I would guess the intention was that it was gonna sound like a sermon in a church, but it just sounds awful, honestly. If this part had been worked on a little more to actually create the atmosphere needed, then it may have transitioned better, but this was definitely not the beginning I was hoping for.
Finally, after six and a half minutes the track actually gets going and from that point on it’s just everything you could ask for from a Cathedral song! The band establishes a main groove quite early, which they come back to several times throughout the track, but never for a moment does it get boring because every other minute the track changes up with guitar solo’s, tempo shifts, an acoustic part, and my favorite part of the track that starts at 10m 40s – the nastiest doom riff I have heard in a good while!
The EP’s shortcomings are very clear; both the atmospheric intro and outro are way too long. 2 minutes in the beginning and a whole 4 and half minutes at the end. The pipe organ part also just doesn’t work for me. The album cover could also do with some work, it feels extremely lazy – could they have used a worse font?
Society’s Pact With Satan is an uncompromising track that might not be for everyone, but for fans of the band, there’s a lot to enjoy. I just have to subtract 1.5 stars for the EP’s glaringly obvious shortcomings.
(3.5 / 5)
