Cradle Of Filth
Godspeed on the Devil's Thunder: The Life and Crimes of Gilles De Rais

It has been just two years since "Thornography," an album harshly criticized for its more "pop" and melodic approach compared to its predecessors (I personally still regard it as a beautiful album that focuses a lot on the immediacy of impact, perhaps the best to start taking the first steps into the dark and fascinating musical and literary labyrinth of COF) and what I define as my Filthy Honeymoon with this band renews, it renews with a rugged, rocky, mighty, dark album, a bolt from the blue that streaks the skies of 2008, mocking magnetic death, the death that separates, the hell of banality, and even the prophets of doom who no longer have anything to prophesy*

"Godspeed On The Devil's Thunder," the Cradle of Obscenity returns to the concept album and renews its lineup: frontman Dani Filth is confirmed (and how could it be otherwise...), bassist Dave Pybus is confirmed, reaching his fourth album with Cradle, Paul Allender, the mainstay of Cradle too often ignored and underestimated, remains the only guitarist in the lineup (which thus returns to 4 elements as in "Damnation And a Day" and on drums out goes the Swede Adrian Erlandsson and in comes the Czech Martin Skaroupka, who does a superb job, just a step below the unattainable Nick Barker.

Ten years after "Cruelty And The Beast," the Bard's pen returns to delve into the depths of a sick mind, into the thoughts and soul of a murderer, a serial killer, no longer the Hungarian countess Elizabeth Bathory but the French nobleman Gilles de Rais, first a leader, devout Catholic, and comrade-in-arms of Joan of Arc and then depraved and sadistic Caesar of his own tragic empire, an empire made of witchcraft, satanic rituals, and perversions, which will lead him in 1440 to death by hanging and the failed attempt to completely erase his memory, which will survive in legends and folk tradition under the name of the ogre Bluebeard.

The work begins with the usual instrumental overture, "In The Grandeur And Frankincense Devilment Stirs," not an arcane crescendo like the previous "Under Pregnant Skies She Comes Alive Like Miss Leviathan" but a cadenced, dark, and oppressive march that explodes in a stunning riff accompanied by a formidable high-voltage drum burst: this is how the opener "Shat Out Of Hell" manifests, introducing the character of Gilles de Rais: the song flaunts absolutely amazing grit; sound power calibrated just right, to which is added a generous dose of what Luca Turilli would call dark epicness, with a spectacularly fit Dani Filth who, as always, manages to lead the listener through the scenarios evoked in his rhymes thanks to his vocal versatility and charisma that is absolutely unmatched in extreme metal. The melodically highest point, however, is reached with the following "The Death Of Love," that is, the death of Joan of Arc, which will mark Gilles for the rest of his life told in a style halfway between "Nemesis" and "Nymphetamine": from the former, it has the emotional impact and epicness, from the latter the sublime pathos, the poignant charge and the duet with a beautiful female voice, all these ingredients are sublimated and perfectly blended by an extraordinary Paul Allender who with his guitar brings to life one of the most memorable, passionate, and engaging melodies of his career. The melodic parenthesis, however, lasts little because with "The 13th Caesar" the atmosphere assumes darker, more claustrophobic, and sicker contours, thanks to the disturbing choirs that introduce the song and accompany the refrain. Gilles de Rais has now decided to abandon the light, retreat to his castle, in search of new pleasures that can replace the lost love: the shadow of the Evil one lengthens over his existence, and we are ready to delve into the black heart of the album...

Violins and increasingly sinister choirs accompanied by the sound of a music box: this is "Tiffauges," the overture of the second part of the album, which explodes and shows all its gruesome intensity in the next two songs, "Tragic Kingdom," masterfully accompanied by stunning gothic orchestrations and "Sweetest Maleficia," more raw and direct, real examples of what I believe to be the true black metal, the one that explores the abysses of the soul, that ventures into darkness and transmits it with verses of high, pure, and pitch-black beauty, not the one that limits itself to saying a few nonsense remarks about the greatness of Satan or other trivialities of this kind...

Thus, we arrive at one of the most exciting episodes of the entire concept: "Honey And Sulphur," opened and closed by an eerie choir in Latin, which turns out to be an irresistible emotional storm in which Dani Filth, Paul Allender, and Martin Skaroupka rage like a blizzard on a winter's night. The darkness reaches its peak with the two suites "Midnight Shadows Crawl To Darken Counsel With Life," where fury and perversion mix in the alternations of frenzied riffs and moments of dark melody, culminating in a marvelous piano interlude that grows and gains strength, transforming into a guitar crescendo and above all the morbid "Darkness Incarnate," in which we finally arrive at the description of Gilles de Rais' most atrocious crimes: the descent into hell finally reaches its final destination: the atmosphere is increasingly heavy and almost suffocating, the Bard's storytelling becomes more and more macabre and hallucinatory, the Allender-Skaroupka sonic wall is increasingly hard and impenetrable, then everything fades, the monster is finally unmasked, the atmosphere from macabre becomes almost reflective, the end for Gilles de Rais is almost reached, and redemption happens with "Ten Leagues Beneath Contempt," before destiny is fulfilled with the title track, "Godspeed On The Devil's Thunder," opened by a liberating choir: it's a hard, rocky and solemn song for the final farewell of the monster, which fades into the outro "Corpseflower," putting an end to Gilles de Rais' earthly story and to the Cradle of Filth's eighth album, adding yet another pearl that further enriches a collection of inestimable value.

"Godspeed On The Devil's Thunder" is not an easy album, perhaps for the first time in his career Dani Filth confronts the theme of pure and self-serving evil, without contaminating it with enticing elements such as the vampiric passion so dear to him, and the final result could only be an album like this, dark and at times raw, but terribly fascinating, which adds a shade of pure black to that infinite fresco that Cradle Of Filth started painting back in 1994 and which, fortunately, is still far from being completed.

*Ref. Metallica-Death Magnetic, Deicide-Till Death Do Us Part, Venom-Hell, Judas Priest-Nostradamus.