Cradle Of Filth
Nymphetamine

THE REVIEW

When a new album by the British Cradle Of Filth is released, there are a series of unwritten laws that regularly exert their authority: when a COF CD comes out, it's already known that half of the audience will praise them regardless of the product's validity, while the other half will be ready to crucify the band with the worst prejudices and comments, failing to separate personal tastes from objectivity.
The problem is that these and other unwritten rules also affect reviewers handling one of the most heralded releases of the year in extreme metal. Typically, it all ends (or used to end) with everyone voluntarily submitting before a group that had to be praised 'anyway': "otherwise who will keep the metal scene strong?" is a thought that's always in vogue within the metal and editorial world, in particular. Here, an alternative path will be sought, perhaps more annoying, but possibly less overburdened by prejudices and pressures.

COF have a great shortcoming: they missed the chance of a lifetime (read: the contract with Sony) squandering a unique opportunity by arriving at the crucial moment with an album below expectations.
But to better understand the COF phenomenon, one must start from afar.

After an avalanche of demos heavily oriented towards the death metal world, their first album is perhaps the only one that can be associated with black metal, even if neither thematically nor musically have COF ever been a black metal band in the traditional sense. And here arose the first great misunderstanding that made the band appear as something they were not (even though it was convenient for them to have certain labels attached) and judged them under a distorted view.
The music of COF owes something to black metal, especially in certain symphonic black atmospheres, but the riffing has always been quite death/black at the beginning, death/thrash later, and lately even heavy-oriented; adding to this the horrific, vampiric, insane themes, and the COF phenomenon reveals itself in all its complexity.
Not being a black metal band, but merely extreme, COF have created unique and intense albums like "Dusk And Her Embrace" or "Cruelty And The Beast". Even the different and dark "Midian" was not bad, indeed at that time Cradle Of Filth were making great music, unique, brilliant, full of atmosphere. If the 'imp' Dani Filth is unbearable to many, this shouldn't be the measure of a band that boasted a respectable lineup, despite frequent changes. They 'had', yes, this band 'had' a great lineup and at the peak of exposure, with the previous album, this failed and COF severely declined their standard.

Not even the astronomical budget serves well for this band that has always shown not to understand much in the studio, and all it took was slightly better production than the others to provoke cries of a miracle and mask the band's lack of ideas. Lacks that continue to be felt in this "Nymphetamine". It's not very useful to compare the new release to the penultimate one; the game isn't worth the candle because the result would thrill few people. The prodigious times are past; one should be surprised that COF managed to stay on the crest of the wave for so long and produce three masterpieces.
Now times have changed, and Dani finds himself with two guitarists who have nothing special or genius, but in the end, he is the one who chooses the members and manages everything, so the blame is shared.

Let's get to "Nymphetamine": after an insignificant intro, the CD opens weakly, even if this time the production is finally really good. Of the opener, some hysterical moments of Dani's vocals reminiscent of the English Lawnmower Deth, a crazy group from a decade ago, are worth noting. "Nemesis" instead is one of the few good songs on the CD, there's even an interesting black metal riff and, although there's an ineffective guitar duet and the atmosphere isn't as rich as it once was, the song is enjoyable. Then it progresses with highs and lows: "Gabrielle" and the title track are rather bad, where the former seems almost a poorly executed remake of past COF songs, while the latter leaves no mark, and the presence of soprano Liv Kristine does nothing to improve the situation. One might wonder what the Norwegian is doing in this context because the female voices used by the band in the past had something sensual, sinful, while for a band like COF, Kristine's angelic voice doesn't seem to align with the rest of the music. Although not writing a masterpiece, "Absinthe With Faust" is a song that can be listened to: its gothic aspect shouldn't surprise because the whole album is rather gothic-oriented, and COF today are a rather slow band, eliminating the faster parts, a choice that isn't yielding great results... After a brief instrumental interlude, three mediocre tracks follow, although in "Medusa and Hemlock", a bit of the old COF style resurfaces, while in "Coffin Fodder" there are good ideas, and finally, in "English Fire", even the metrics used by the creative Dani begin to show limitations. But there's worse, because with "Filthy Little Secret" they reach rock bottom. Here the band even loses sight of their usual good taste in music. The end of the CD instead significantly lifts the poor, or almost, performance delivered by the English group so far. A piano can be heard playing with emotion, some fast parts can be heard again, not too badly executed either, and even the second appearance of Liv Kristine on the CD immediately convinces in the fabulous, this time yes although very gothic, closing song.
Many highs and lows, therefore, where the former don't completely remedy the poor spirit that now grips a band in evident decline. The new comers may even get excited for a mediocre work, perhaps cleverly crafted, but in reality has little value; the old guard, those who listened at night to "Dusk And Her Embrace" and then enjoyed the bloodthirsty madness of "Cruelty And The Beast", will find the tomb of Cradle Of Filth in the notes of "Nymphetamine", always assuming they were still considered alive. One shouldn't be misled by a non-foreshadowing evaluation... Even myths fall eventually, and they always do so with a loud noise. Unfortunately for us.