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Rating: 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.
Tracklist and Lyrics
02 Gilded Cunt (04:07)
Your misery is worn as a veil
To hide bewitchment of the ugliest kind
In place of eve a bitter parody hails
Daggers from the swagger
Of a sodomite's concubine
Bine (Bine)
Gilded cunt
Oh, you gilded cunt
Your thin pretence overstretched and sickly
Feigns love and light a long time laid in the grave
My preference leans to killing you quickly
Scissored in the gizzard
That a heart no more maintains
But I am tied
To the labyrinth and the beast
The one-way track of eyes
Black and grey like panzers
Loose your shell
Shoot the mouth
The gates of hell
Have often dropped their jaws about
Satan's agents were perversion to bear
Side to side with their diversions
You use to guide my fingers there
Dirty little gold digger
Dirty little gold digger
Dirty little gold digger
Dirty little gold digger
Dirty little gold digger
Dirty little gold digger
Cunt (Cunt)
Gilded cunt
Oh, you gilded cunt
Cunt
Cunt
Nothing is above you save a boreal light
That halo paid for by a consummated ring of ice
And below you, will I see you tonight
Glower from your tower
Built of ivory and spite?
For I am torn
Between the sheets that keep me borne
And the teeth of a storm
They reap then rend my stanzas
Click your heels
Three times six
The stars are fixed
May I climb and get you one?
The palace at Versailles never held your tongue
Nor did heaven ever weather
The crosses that you came upon
Dirty little soul frigger
Dirty little soul frigger
Dirty little soul frigger
Dirty little soul frigger
Dirty little soul frigger
Dirty little soul frigger
Cunt (Cunt)
Gilded cunt
Oh, you gilded cunt
Cunt
Cunt
Take your pain and shove it up your asshole
Take your pain and shove it up your asshole
Take your pain and shove it up your asshole
Take your pain and shove it up your asshole
Take your pain and shove it up your asshole
Take your pain and shove it up your asshole
03 Nemesis (07:17)
Tonight is the night
The empowering wind that draws breath from despite
Roars �neath my wings as I soar with the end in sight
Choirs ignite
A swansong for Leda
Deathknells for Troy
Tragedy blooms from one act
I am nemesis
Poured in my arms
When my daughter�s eyelids closed
I swore to slaughter those
Who stole my ray of moonlight
So strike up the skies
The diction of thunder
God-given rites
No fiction can deafen the fact
I am nemesis
Cowled in the utter grief
I am the priest of a new disorder
Whose flag unfurled
Bears a hatred for the western world
The is no compromise
No piped lament
To stay the blind
Just a shrike cacophony of war
Ashes ember, fires rise
No longer am I paralysed
Now I drown in a loss worth fighting for
Black is my heart
Black is my heart
Black is my heart
I am nemesis
Black is my heart
Black is my heart
Black is my heart
I am nemesis
Nemesis
Nemesis
Tonight is the night
The city sweats fever, the filth in her womb
Shifts like the season�s unease at the hands of doom
Restless inside
Her split underbelly
Suitored with flies
Marital bowels now contract
I am nemesis
Poured in my arms
When my daughter�s eyelids closed
I swore to slaughter those
Who stole my ray of moonlight
Never again
Our enemies entertained
I toy at the clasp of her chain
And remember the fight
Cowled in utter grief
I am the priest of a new disorder
Whose flag unfurled
Bears a hatred for the western world
There is no compromise
No piped lament to stay the blind
Just a shrike cacophony of war
Ashes ember, fires rise
No longer am I Palestined
Now I drown in a loss worth fighting for
Black is my heart
Black is my heart
Black is my heart
I am nemesis
Black is my heart
Black is my heart
Black is my heart
I am nemesis
Black is my heart
Black is my heart
Black is my heart
I am nemesis
Black is my heart
Black is my heart
Black is my heart
I am nemesis
Nemesis
Nemesis
04 Gabrielle (05:27)
Foul snake despair
Where once you darkened gardens
Another coils there
Where twice you sliced all hope from me
And left these present scars
An insane love now burns above
The weft of incandescent stars
Hilt your dripping fangs that range
Skywards to rend apart
I might have sang of wings unchained
But long before I locked my heart
For Gabrielle
A fit and perfect stitch of foreign parts
Whose beauty fostered poets
Whose laugh like silver belts
Thawed your bitter winter from my path
Gabrielle
Foul snake despair
Where once you peddled secrets
Another spoils there
With speech that sweetens drowning
In deep lagoons of eyes
And legs that begged apologies
For lengths that mesmerised
Spare your hissing sentiments
For her fee welts more than thine
Though no malice she weans
Just a palace of dreams
Where windswept chambers pine
For Gabrielle
Whose hair-spun onyx is run with gold
Her rouge lips smack of dark blood
Her name in whisper rolls
Forever on my tongue
Lest her memory dissolve
Gabrielle
Oh, Gabrielle
Once crucified
I would have died
A thousand more times
Just to feel her breath
On my neck as a fervent lover
To drown her sighs
In floods of tears so well refined
And blind from spying her
In the arms of others
Gabrielle
Gabrielle
Buried inside
Where she's all but mine
Save for those that dine
Oh her, on her perfect carcass
Gabrielle
Gabrielle
Foul snake despair
Where once you wreaked my misery
Another toils there
For long lost Gabrielle
Whose nightly spreading grin
Persists in other faces
By whom I'm slowly taken in
05 Absinthe With Faust (05:14)
Pour the emerald wine
Into crystal glasses
We will touch the divine
Through kisses catharsis
Let us pitch to the seven-year itch
Of the ultra-decadent
To a tainted world and the painted girls
That our fantasies spent
Tripping through boudoirs laced with opiate themes
Sipping the bizarre, tasting copious dreams
A toast to those most sacrilegious of days
Where for every whim won
One soon repays
We touched the stars
That now laugh from afar
At we, the damned
The damned
The damned
The damned
We have spent our time
Drenched in opulent splendour
But when midnight chimes
Will gilded souls surrender?
Let us drink on the giddying brink
Of pools of excrement
All manner of shit for the glamour and glitz
Mephistopheles lent
I remember the night as if it were engraved
A bright marble bridge stretched across the dark waves
To the shore from the moon and by her grace
Came that erudite stranger
That fucker
He was a predator, creditor cold
Our blood was shone on the yellowing scroll
And all that glittered was not gold
But we wanted everything
And for it all lost our souls
Come my friend, to fate let's raise
Two finger shots at this our last soiree
For tomorrow I fear
Swoops all too deadly near
This precipitous weir to Hell's high gate
We touched the stars
That now laugh from afar
At we, the damned
The damned
The damned
The damned
He was a predator, creditor cold
Our blood was shoved on the yellowing scroll
And all that glittered was not gold
But we wanted everything
And for it all lost our souls
Our souls
For it all lost our souls
Our souls
08 Medusa and Hemlock (04:43)
Dim the lights, wrong the rites
Toss the puerile cross away
We are gashing from a venomous womb
Burning bright, dead of night
Pyres stain a milky way
Lust is splashing the dark side of the moon
In the Samhain mist
We lay in welcome by the western gate
With the five fold kiss
For every soul returning
From the fecund abyss
Where nature�s travesties congregate
With a stone cold wish
To see the wicker man burning
The wind, she whispers
Through the graveyards of our hearts
Wreathed in dreams
As she weaves her witchcraft
We breathe, enamoured
Of the conquering dark
Medusa and Hemlock
Harvest past, fires cast
Ashen shades this Halloween
We are set now to Beherit the earth
Widdershins, death begins
To fashion fete to gallow scenes
Sprits rising to discredit rebirth
In the Samhain mist
We lay in welcome by the western gate
With the five fold kiss
For every soul returning
From the fecund abyss
Where nature�s travesties congregate
With a stone cold wish
To see the wicker man burning
The wind, she flitters
Through the forest of our hearts
Wreathed in leaves
As she weaves her witchcraft
We breathe, enamoured
Of the conquering dark
I will trace the knot of serpents in your hair
Plot your face, then ascending marble stares
You shall pluck me, masked, from roses-in-despair
Tasting my blood
That runs from worming tongue like prayer
Under pagan veneer snakes a fear
That makes the stars
Grieve, just to be
Uncharted on this eve
When part of me chars a path
Through your heavenly constellations
Medusa and Hemlock
Back to black, hinges crack
Rituals call obscenities
Sheets of demons rush insanity skies
Tread the salt; the dead exult
Preachers beg our clemency
Seeking warmth in humanity�s eyes
We who kept the candle by the vault
We who kept the candle on the cult
09 Coffin Fodder (05:17)
The time has come
To rise again
Freedom lift thy sewered hem
Free from beasts and skewered men
My dreams unroll
Ten thousand fold
Their world will never take me
They will never desecrate my soul
The stars I have grasped
Are so far lonely constellations
And wishing on those stars
My spirit bars annihilation
From earthen miseries
Hosts of most fell forms of greed
Ghosts of pearly gate remissions
Forever haunting me
Slit the witch and watch him bleed
As with any inquisition
Lying from the start
The preachers piled their craft
Scoffing elder glories
And dying, I depart
To make their sunken hearts
A coffin for their stories
The time is past
The falter when
Freedom slips my sombre pen
And the gates to wolves break open then
My feelings may
Seem constant prey
But claws no more will rake me
Those whores have fled to darker days
Above and beyond
I have wronged in my position
But now the winds are strong
To soar from Babel's vision
Of cutthroat jealousies
Dock to dock these mongrels breed
Dogs of fogged derision
Pacing, soon to be
Back to pack mentality
When my killing moon is risen
Trying from the start
These creatures of the dark
Were quaffing morning glories
And dying, I depart
To make their drunken hearts
A coffin for their stories
Innovation in ovation
Imagination stirs
Somewhere the dusk is lining
Red the shore of a roaring sea
And though loved there is someone is pining
For the waves of blood to run and rescue me
For the waves of blood to run and rescue me
To run and run and run and run
The time has come
To rise again
Freedom lift thy sewered hem
Free from beasts and skewered men
My dreams unroll
Ten thousand fold
Their world will never take me
They will never desecrate my soul
Their world will never break me
They will never desecrate my soul
10 English Fire (04:45)
Seven brides serve me seven sins
Seven seas writhe for me
From Orient gates to R'lyeh
Abydos to Thessaly
And Sirens sing from stern
But now I cease to play
For I yearn to return
To woodland ferns
Where Herne and his wild huntress lay
Now the tidal are turning
Spurning the darkness
The great purgations of distinguished tours
Are but stills in time
To the thrill that I'm
Once more
Heading to the bedding
Of her English shores
The wind bickered in Satanic mill sails
Eyes flickered in deep thickets of trees
And mists clung tight in panic to vales
When Brigantia spoke her soul to me
From Imbolg to Bealtaine
Lughnasadh to Samhain feasts
I heard her lament as season�s blent
Together a chimerical beast
Now the tidal are turning
Churning in darkness
The celebrations of extinguished wars
Are but stills in time
To the chill that climbs
Once more
Dreading the red weddings
On her English shores
Gone are the rustic summers of my youth
Cruel winters cut their sacred throats
With polished scythes that reap worldwide
Pitch black skies and forest smoke
And the hosts that I saw there
Drones of carrion law
Drove the ghosts of my forbears
To rove and rally once more
One of her sons from the vast far-flung
Come home to rebuild
The rampant line of the Leonine
Risen over pestilent fields
Now the tidal are turning
Burning in darkness
The salvation of her hungry sword
Shalt spill like wine
From the hills to chines
That pour
Spreading her beheadings
On these English shores
For the hosts that I saw there
Drones of carrion law
Drove the ghosts of my forbears
To rove and rally once more
This is a waking for England
From it's reticent doze
This is a waking for England
Lest hope and glory are regarded as foes
11 Filthy Little Secret (06:15)
There hides a secret
Deeply twined inside of her mind
A tried and confined egret
That pines to fly south
To this mouth of mine
Pity
Too long have these emotions
Like potions, made me
A sole castellan
Trusted to keep
The weight of oceans
From her rusted gates of sleep
A dreaming angel
Lying curled in the circles of Hell
I must protect her
Watch her back for any cracks to occur
For in the witching hour
She slips into the underworld
A pearled Persephone
Deflowered by the powers
Hat around her
Down her
Whirl
Doomed to damn the rift
Across the shifting abyss
With her body and it's gift
My filthy little secret
I serve her slender hope
To preserve mankind from old ghosts
Disturbed though by recurring crimes
I sense that dead
Might be best for both
Pity
Too long have these emotions
Like potions, made me
A sole castellan
Posted to keep
Slow wheels in motion
From the human race to beat
Without her there
My nymphetamine with the faraway stare
Thin walls would crumble
Horrors would corroborate from dogstar lairs
For in the dead of the night
She spasms with orgasmic flare
This reamed Demeter
With Poseidons there inside her
Too appeased to grieve our air
Doomed to dam the rift
Across the shifting abyss
With her body and it's gift
My filthy little secret
Forever sworn to keep it
My filthy little secret
She makes me borne
Pity
Too long this urchin princess
Has incensed, made me
A wanton felon
Searching for the key
To loose her harness
And set desires lurching free
Without her there
My nymphetamine with the faraway stare
Thin walls would crumble
Horrors would corroborate from dogstar lair
But in her room at night
I care not for the underworld
Slathering and gathering emboldened Reichs
To breach, to teach
A dread thereafter
I would risk all this
For one minute of bliss
With her body and it's gift
My filthy little secret
Forever sworn to keep it
My filthy little secret
I know a deeper beauty shines
Beyond the veil
Her roots and creepers mine
As the worms beneath arise
13 Mother of Abominations (07:32)
Ia, Ia, Cthulhu fhtagn
Ia, Ia, Cthulhu fhtagn
Ia, Ia, Cthulhu fhtagn
Ia, Ia, Cthulhu fhtagn
Ia, Ia, Cthulhu fhtagn
Ia, Ia, Cthulhu fhtagn
Ia, Ia, Cthulhu fhtagn
Ia, Ia, Cthulhu fhtagn
Ia, Ia, Cthulhu fhtagn
Ia, Ia, Cthulhu fhtagn
Ia, Ia, Cthulhu fhtagn
Ia, Ia, Cthulhu fhtagn
Mother of abominations
Our Lady Overkill
Grips the cosmic wheel
Smothering the congregation
A lover of acceleration
No mercy or brakes applied
I see dead stars collide
In her cold unflinching powerslide
Comets tear the skies
Gushing from a shattered silence
Never so alive
Minds desanitized
Like the rush of cum on nymphetamines
Nightchords rung on a ladder of violence
Sleek and polished black
Darkness fantasised
Instrumental in stripping Gods
To neuter and mute their staves
Thereafter
Her laughter
Shalt sound aloft their future graves
Fear the Gorgon eyes of a new moon rising
Heavens above
Expect no love
When she enters your golden halls
Millennial the whore
Riding wide astride the horns of madness
Clarions forth the war
Spilling the wine of her fornication
Perrenial the gore
Filling the lines between split nations
Seeping under doors
Mother of abominations
In time tides force a wider crack
Our Lady Overkill
Smothering the congregation
Licks the royal milk
The scourge hangs at her girdle
Death slathers near her heel
Her roared abortive labour
Seeking blood to curdle
When the gathered clouds reveal
Dripping into sabres
Thighs slick with molten steel
For Vulcan spawn to wield
Instrumental in stripping Gods
To neuter and lash her slaves
Thereafter
Her laughter
Shalt sound aloft the crashing waves
Heavens above
Fear the Gorgon eyes of a new caste rising
Expect no love
On sanguine floods
When they enter your golden halls
Hear the foregone cries of the last surviving
Skewered like doves
Outside these wailing walls
14 Nymphetamine (Fix) (05:01)
Led to the river
Midsummer I wave
A "V" of black swans
On with hope to the grave
And through Red September
With skies fire-paved
I begged you appear
Like a thorn for the holy ones
Cold was my soul
Untold was the pain
I faced, when you left me
A rose in the rain...
So I swore to the razor
That never, enchained
Would your dark nails of faith
Be pushed through my veins again
Bared on your tomb
I'm a prayer for your loneliness
And would you ever soon
Come above unto me?
For once upon a time
From the binds of your lowliness
I could always find
The right slot for your sacred key
Six feet deep is the incision
In my heart that barless prison
Discolours all with tunnel vision
Sunsetter...
Nymphetamine
Sick and weak from my condition
This lust, this vampiric addiction
To her alone in full submission
None better...
Nymphetamine
Nymphetamine, nymphetamine
Nymphetamine girl
Nymphetamine, nymphetamine
My nymphetamine girl
Wracked with your charm
I'm circled like prey
Back in the forest
Where whispers persuade
More sugar trails
More white lady laid
Than pillars of salt
Fall to my arms
Hold their mesmeric sway
And dance out to the moon
As we did in those golden days
Christening stars
I remember the way
We were needle and spoon
Mislaid in the burning hay
Bared on your tomb
I'm a prayer for your loneliness
And would you ever soon
Come above unto me?
For once upon a time
From the bind of your holiness
I could always find
The right slot for your sacred key
Six feet deep is the incision
In my heart that barless prison
Discolours all with tunnel vision
Sunsetter...
Nymphetamine
Sick and weak from my condition
This lust, this vampiric addiction
To her alone in full submission
None better...
Nymphetamine
Sunsetter...
Nymphetamine
(Nymphetamine)
None better...
Nymphetamine
Nymphetamine, nymphetamine
Nymphetamine girl
Nymphetamine, nymphetamine
My nymphetamine girl
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Other reviews
By BathoryAria
Nymphetamine boasts great songs with a mix of gothic-rock and metal influences, showing the band's consistent originality.
The beautiful, elegant, dreamy, melancholic, decadent title track… will bring tears to your eyes.
By Starblazer
"Nymphetamine is a very fickle album, full of ups and downs, certainly difficult to appreciate on the first listen."
"It was she who introduced me to the world of Cradle Of Filth: I first listened to it at fifteen and was completely captivated."
