Another unearthed, still-sealed original cassette from the recent warehouse find of Earache stuff that I found.

One of my favorite Cathedral records, Hopkins (The Witchfinder General) is an oddball EP that came out between The Carnival Bizarre and Supernatural Birth Machine. By this point the band was all-in with their explorations into psychedelic rock, blues and jazz fusion influenced, and boy, it's all out on the table here. 1996's Hopkins (The Witchfinder General) is also tonally all over the joint, steeped in their longstanding Hammer horror influences and surreal British folk-horror vibe, while also rocketing into the distant heights of weed-fueled ecstasy. The result is an experimental, free-wheeling EP that starts off delivering on the creepiness of Cathedral's earlier work, but ends up out in sun-baked, sax-soaked delirium by the end of it all. The instrumentation is wild, incorporating a stew of saxophones, Hammond organ, additional percussion, Mellotron, electronic keyboards, and more, creating a glorious psych-soaked din.

A strange offering from this now-legendary doom metal outfit, up and down. The title track "Hopkins" is actually one of the songs off The Carnival Bizarre; I'm not sure if this is the same version, or a re-recording: in any event, opening your EP with the velvet voice of Vincent Price is a guaranteed thumbs-up from me, and the way that sample kicks right into the title track is aces. It's one of Cathedral's groovier, more rockin' tunes, heavy as an anvil but chugging through with locomotive propulsion, the music moving between a classic heavy rock sound and those divine Sabbathian slowdowns; "Hopkins" delivers on the killer riffs courtesy of guitarist Garry Jennings, and Lee Dorrian's vocals are mainly in that wailing growl mode that marked the later 90s releases from the band. It's a crusher. But I think it's actually upstaged by an incredible cover of the classic Arthur Brown song "Fire" that immediately follows it. Cathedral stick to the structure of the original, just amping up the metallic crunch, and Dorrian sounds demented as he belts out those lyrics; his style of singing lends itself well to this song. The Hammond organs in the background further enrich the trippiness. It's pretty rad.

The other three songs that make up the half-hour rumble-thon of Hopkins show Cathedral pursuing their more experimental muse, as they often did on their non-album releases. The instrumental "Copper Sunset” is a fairly short piece of melancholic doom, but packs in some terrific soaring melodies along with the downwards flow of the riffs. Quite pleasant. On the other hand, the guys get a bit weirder with "Purple Wonderland ", which unfolds as some kind of funky goth rock number, mixing up some groovy synthesizer squelch and moody verses with a chunkier chorus hook and a cool backdrop of liquid funked-out bass guitar lines, Hammond organ tones, and stoned woodwind accompaniment. Definitely one of Cathedral's quirkier songs. Even weirder is the straight-up jazz-funk banger "The Devils Summit", spilling out juicy bass guitar, shimmering guitar textures, a backing horn section, and Dorrian channeling a bizarre cross between James Brown and Tom Warrior that really needs to be heard. The exuberant saxophone breaks (from "Brian Love Bucket" and "Howell Babe Magnet" ) that strafe this nearly ten-minute jammer smoke, especially when the instrument is trading off against Jennings' staccato funk riffs and wah-pedal wonkiness. Smee and Dixon are so deep in the pocket that it's a wonder the rest of the band could even see 'em. The final third of "Summit" slips into a smooth blues jam that is drenched in even more organ and sax , the band settling into a killer blues vamp that allows both the guitars and the horns to take off into free-form noodling. There's nothing exactly like it in the Cathedral catalog, (it's quite far from the crushing glacial misery of Forest of Equilibrium and Ethereal Mirror), and it's a blast.