Spire spires were an astounding architectural innovation, beginning with the early fourteenth-century spire at Freiburg Minster, in which the pierced stonework was held together by iron cramps. The openwork spire, according to Robert Bork, represents a "radical but logical extension of the Gothic tendency towards skeletal structure." The organic skeleton of Antoni Gaudi's phenomenal spires at the Sagrada Família in Barcelona represent an outgrowth of this Gothic tendency. Designed and begun by Gaudi in 1884, they were not completed until the 20th century. In England, "spire" immediately brings to mind Salisbury Cathedral. Its 403-foot (123-m) spire, built between 1320 and 1380,
The Last Spire origins for a honed and toned (almost) mid-tempo thrust". Chris Ward described the album as bringing Cathedral "full circle", and serving as a bookend to the band's debut; however, he also heard "enough of the flavours the band sprinkled into all their albums in between to give it the feel of a eulogy of the band's output." Dean Brown, describing "The Last Spire" as a "true doom record", also credited the band with a "masterful understanding of dynamics" that integrated Cathedral's "signature curveballs". Grayson Currin wrote for Pitchfork that "The Last Spire" "does not feel like a microwaved visitation with