CD Review: Cradle of Filth - Godspeed On The Devil's Thunder

[zimbloth]

There is no bigger fan than Cradle of Filth's older work than myself, especially 'Cruelty And The Beast', 'Vempire', and 'Midian'. I enjoy bits and pieces of their more contemporary material such as the 'Nymphetamine' album, but their most recent CD 'Thornography' was a giantdisappointment for me. It seemed they abandoned everything that made them epic and heavy in lieu of putting out a watered-down thrash album with almost no symphonic or epic elements. Given all this, I was extremely skeptical about the quality of their new album but it is my pleasure to declare 'Godspeed on The Devil's Thunder' an absolute fucking masterpiece!

This album is extremely mature and really has it all. It has the heaviness, speed, and gothic grandeur like their old material and has perfectly blended it with brilliant harmonies, catchy riffs, superb orchestration and obscenely good production (you can thank Andy Sneap for that one). 'Godspeed On The Devil's Thunder' is the best album for 2008 in my humble opinion.

Also important to note, vocalist Dani Filth has put in by far his best vocal performance of his career here. He is still an acquired taste, but he has never sounded better. His low deep vocals are terrific and his signature high-pitched sounds are clear and nonabrasive. The guitars are much better than usual as well, Paul really has stepped up his game. The riffs are far more technical and well composed than most of his previous work. The drums are very good on this record as well, but Martin is no Nick Barker. The orchestration is very tasteful and epic as well, lush and never over the top.

Words can't express how much I love this CD, so I'll save time and just briefly run through some of my album highlights:

2 - Shat Out Of Hell
3 - The Death Of Love
4 - The 13th Caesar
8 - Honey And Sulphur
9 - Midnight Shadows Crawl To Darken Counsel With Life
10 - Darkness Incarnate

That said, this album from start to finish is an epic journey and I can't recommend this CD enough. Brilliant! 'Godspeed On The Devil's Thunder' is easily their best work in 10 years

I award this CD five Cousin Larrys:

More recommended albums to come out recently: Abigail Williams - In A Shadow Of A Thousand Suns, Draconian - Turning Season Within, Gojira - The Way Of All Flesh.

 

[petereanima]

thanks for the review, i will check the CD out. i still think nymphetamine is their best album so far. i also like midian, but couldnt get hooked to the rest of their stuff.

 

[Nick]

i may buy thhis cd just becuase they named a track 'shat out of hell'

i would never have pinned you as a cradel fan Nick.

im a big fan of midian

 

[zimbloth]

i would never have pinned you as a cradle fan Nick.

im a big fan of midian

Yeah I've been a fan for a long time. I love music that is epic, dark, heavy, and extreme yet also melodic and lush - so this fits right in. I do have a really diverse taste in metal though, I like bits of pieces of almost all the sub-genres.

I love the symphonic black/extreme metal stuff of course like Dimmu, Cradle, Emperor, Chthonic, Old Man's Child, Abigail Williams to the melodeath stuff like Arch Enemy, In Flames, Hypocrisy, Amon Amarth to gothic/doom like My Dying Bride, Draconian, Type O Negative, Celtic Frost, to death metal like Behemoth, Nile, Cannibal Corpse, Morbid Angel, Origin to American bands like Nevermore, Machine Head, Fear Factory (old), Black Dahlia, Korn (old), and many more styles as well (power metal, old school, grind, etc).

So yeah, you can peg me as a fan of almost anything potentially. I'll listen to anything as long as I think it's well written and catchy, whether it's rock like A Perfect Circle, GNR, Muse or more poppy soft stuff like Sarah Brightman, Vast, etc. I just write the stuff I do with my band because its what most suits the talents of my bandmates. If I was playing with a different group of people I would write differently, but I love the shit we're doing too

Oops, just realized I ranted probably for no reason, oh well. Check out this CD!

 

[Nick]

to be fair when i think of tracks like cthulu dawn i can see that in your music so i guess it should have been more obvious!

Looks like we have similar tastes though haha

 

[Randy]

I'm in love with this album, myself. And I've never been much of a CoF but this did it for me.

 

[zimbloth]

to be fair when i think of tracks like cthulu dawn i can see that in your music so i guess it should have been more obvious!

Looks like we have similar tastes though haha

Cool Yeah, Chtulu Dawn is my favorite song off Midian so I'll definitely take that as a compliment. Nemecide is certainly not a black metal band but I try infuse all my influences in the songwriting when I can, so there are moments here and there where those sensibilities might pop up.

I'm in love with this album, myself. And I've never been much of a CoF but this did it for me.

 

[Meldville]

Musically I've always thought this band had some cool stuff going on, but I just can't stand Dani Filth's voice.

 

[zimbloth]

Musically I've always thought this band had some cool stuff going on, but I just can't stand Dani Filth's voice.

It'll grow on you! Seriously though, I think his vocal performance on this record is by far the least annoying of his career. Give it a shot.

 

[kung_fu]

It'll grow on you! Seriously though, I think his vocal performance on this record is by far the least annoying of his career. Give it a shot.

It should say that on a promo sticker on the album cover. Seriously though, I'll have to check this out. I only have Dusk and her Embrace and Nymphetamine, but have been meaning to get more.

 

[midian]

...the new album rules, thanks for the review!

 

[Dyingsea]

Their drummer sounds a hell of a lot like Nick Barker.

 

[Slayer89]

I love a lot of stuff on Nymphetamine, so I'll have to check this out.

 

[winterlover]

music is good, but filth's voice is just annoying as fuck!
honey and sulphur has that chanting in it that i dig, other than that get rid of dani's voice and it'd be good, other than that cradle can go fuck themselves. they're half carnival half metal and everyone thinks they're black metal....pisses me off
lol (let's not get into that discussion, mkay)

they've got into a habit of doing the same thing alot, the guitar will go
dum dum dum dummmmm then dani will blah blah blah in his little twirp voice then dum dum dum dummmm again and so on

 

[zimbloth]

So you're admitting the music is good, but saying fuck them anyways because they're not pure black metal? I respect your opinion who cares about labels? They're evolved from that just (like Dimmu has) to an even better entity. At the end of the day it's about songs and not fitting nicely into specific genres.

Seriously just listen to the album with an open mind and you'll find some enjoyment. No one is around to judge you for liking a band that's commercially viable, it's safe

 

[Dead but Dreaming]

It seems to me that he just didn't like Dani Filth's vocals, not that he doesn't like the band because they're not "black metal".

I haven't given a shit about Cradle of Filth since Nymphetamine.. Total disappointment considering some of their previous work. Well, aside from the title track. It's promising to hear some nice things about this album and I'll have to check it out

 

[Demiurge]

I'm pretty sure I've read interviews with members of CoF who claim that they don't think of themselves as "black metal," so I'm not really sure if they can be faulted for not being what they're not trying to be, no matter how many people who don't know better say otherwise.

Anyway, it's a good album- songs are a decent length and fairly heavy (hey kids!- heavy without breakdowns!). The spoken-word portions, though, I could live without.

 

[TMM]

Posted this elsewhere too... I gotta say, I read a lot of reviews around the web, and all the reviews that state this album is "not as good as Nymphetamine" show 2 things, 1) you don't like black metal (at all), and 2) you've never listened to a good Cradle of Filth album... Nymphetamine is only dethroned by Thornography as being the worst CoF release of all time. GotDT is significantly better than either Thornography or Nymphetamine. I'd put it on par with Damnation and a Day, but it's actually more of a return to their older style than DaaD was. If you're looking for a CoF album that recalls all the gothic, black grandeur of their earlier albums, GotDT is the closest of the last 4 albums. It's no Midian, but it's pretty good. It starts out okay, but IMHO doesn't really pick up and go from good to great until Honey and Sulfur.

 

[zimbloth]

Really? I thought Damnnation and a Day was by far their worst album, with Nymphetamine way way better. I'd rank this album the best of their work since 2000. This album has much better songwriting than DAAD, which has notoriously weak songwriting and production.

 

[TMM]

Really? I thought Damnnation and a Day was by far their worst album, with Nymphetamine way way better. I'd rank this album the best of their work since 2000. This album has much better songwriting than DAAD, which has notoriously weak songwriting and production.

There were some tracks on DaaD that made me cringe, but as a whole I liked it better than Nymphetamine. Track 2, Gabrielle, Absinthe With Faust, and English Fire were all good songs, but I thought the rest of the album lacked any real value. I hated that they chose not to record with SJD, because she was a big part of the dark, gothic sound they had (and have again on GotDT). Worse, they replaced her with Liv Kristine, who sounds like a 12-year-old, and I just didn't think that fit at all. I heard that they had actually recorded at least some of the songs with SJD originally, but replaced her tracks with Liv's... I'd like to hear how the originals came out by comparison.

Fair enough that not every track on DaaD was groundbreaking, but I liked the whole concept of the album. The Promise of Fever, Hurt and Virtue, Better to Reign in Hell, Serpent Toungue, and Mannequin were all good, and I thought the intermission tracks were a lot better thought out too. Weak production? I thought DaaD souned better than either Thornography or (most of) Nymphetamine (though not as good as GotDT). For Paul having such a nice rig, I thought the guitars on those albums just sounded thin and nasally. You have to admit that the first few bars of Better to Reign in Hell sound enormous.

I don't think anything off of any album since 2000 compares with Honey and Sulphur or Midnight Shadows Crawl to Darken Counsel With Life off of GotDT, but, for me, the rest of the album isn't any better (or worse) than DaaD / Nymphetamine.

Their drummer sounds a hell of a lot like Nick Barker.

Have you ever heard Nick Barker? That's an insult. That man is a (short) drum god, like a drum machine on steroids.