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Rating: Red like passion, blood and vampirism, and black like the night, the evil and the darkness.
The year 1994 marks the debut for Cradle of Filth, a then-unknown band from Suffolk, a southeastern region of the Land of Albion, cradle of ancient and mysterious pagan civilizations. Dani Filth, Paul Allender, Nick Barker, Robin Eaglestone, Paul Ryan, and Benjamin Ryan are children of this land, children of the solitary, cold, and misty English countryside and the forests kissed by the full moon. Their debut album, recorded for Cacophonous Records in the autumnal shadows of 1993, is influenced by all these elements, resulting in an album halfway between paganism and Satanism, with ferocious and violent moments alternating with others of rare sweetness and nocturnal melancholy. In short, the final result is a new subgenre of the metallic universe: Filth Metal.
DARKNESS, OUR BRIDE (JUGULAR WEDDING): The eerie and seductive sound of a music box begins the pagan ceremony of marriage with darkness. "Agios o Satanas," whispers Dani.
THE PRINCIPLE OF EVIL MADE FLESH: The title track, icy with thrash-esque reminiscences in the riffing. Dani's voice sounds filtered and distant due to poor production, but what makes the difference is Big Nick, who dominates the song with his lethal strokes. "Storming from tired centuries, under the glare of a waxing death moon, terrible beauty of love severed, rip the baby from the womb"
THE FOREST WHISPERS MY NAME: A song, a legend. The refined and evocative instrumental intro, Benjamin's virtuosic keyboards create a lunar and ethereal atmosphere, Allender's melodic black riffs, and Barker's driving rhythms, combined with the lyrics and the superb performance of frontman Dani, are the ingredients that give rise to what has become the ultimate symbol of the Cradle of Filth. "When the moon is full, we shall assemble to adore, the potent spirit of your queen, my mother great Diana". An immortal masterpiece that will forever remain in the annals of metal history.
ISCARIOT: Sumptuous keyboard effects emulating an orchestra against the backdrop of heartbeats, rains, and thunders. Overture to the invocation of the Black Goddess.
THE BLACK GODDESS RISES: A beautiful, intense and moving prayer to the goddess of the night: Hecate, Artemis, Ishtar; punctuated by a dramatic and dreamlike piano, with a sprinkling of black here and there and participation by the German Andrea Haugen (wife of Samoth of Emperor) in the role of the Black Goddess. Impossible not to be captivated by such dark beauty. "Oh, how I have craved for you, you so pure and other-worldly with your scent of winter, am I to bleed myself dry just to see your delight?"
ONE FINAL GRAVEN KISS: A brief piano sonata by moonlight, introducing us to the black heart of the album.
A CRESCENDO OF PASSION BLEEDING: A hallucinatory and megalomaniac vision of the defeat of Christianity and the return to origins, the worship of pagan deities. It starts strong with Allender and Barker in the foreground, but towards the middle of the track, the pace becomes slower and more solemn, leaving room for Benny Ryan’s keyboards. "Even the moon will not lend thee her light, the darkness serves will to snuff out human life, that I might reclaim the world as my right"
TO EVE THE ART OF WITCHCRAFT: The very first erotic-romantic delirium made in COF, idealizing the figure of the witch (again interpreted by Lady Emperor) as the ultimate erotic ideal. A bit raw but seminal for what will be "Dusk... And Her Embrace." "Love shall consume and bathe the lady, whom I worship and ride thereon, she will greet me as a serpent, in her dark, secret Eden"
[Instrumental]
From the primeval mass
Black candles dance to an overture
Thee I Invoke, bornless one
Crawl in awful stealth to me
Ah, listen to them....
Through acrid clouds of summer flies
Swords in hand at the bloody fields of history
Tracklist Lyrics Samples and Videos
01
Darkness Our Bride (Jugular Wedding)
(02:00)
[spoken:]
Agios o Satanas.
02
The Principle of Evil Made Flesh
(04:34)
Let precious chaos vent
Sacred flesh drenched in fornication
Beloved by set
May the winds gather her together
From the secrets of men
After thousands of years of terrifying silence
She comes again
The abolition of the yeshua begins
Shattered are the icons of the worthless
The Goddess scorned is a Valkyrie born
Scattered are the wings of the virulent holy
Leave their husks to be the prey of vultures and dogs
World without end
Cherish the lissom wants of pernicious evil
Dusk in her eyes
Torn bloody weeping skies
Darkness will hasten to devour
And the weak will flee or die
Sie sind es die sich
Anderlieb festhalten
Fuer immer betend auf knien
Vor der (Finisteren) goetten
I slay the lamb in the fervour of thine
Abandonment unto Our Lady
With a quenchless thirst for the infinite
For her that exists beyond all knowledge
Storming from tired centuries
Under the glare of a waxing death-moon
Terrible beauty of love severed
Rip the baby from the virginal womb
The blood of Jesus
Is the wine of the dead
And the drunken angels
The liliot suckle on her fruitful breasts
And yield the swords that sever and stain
There will be no act or passion wrought
That shall not be attributed to her names
To the name of Baphomet
Artemis, Bastet, Astarte
I yearn to thee who art darkness in thy rising
Come on then Nottingham
Come on!
Fucking make some noise!
From the primeval mass
Let precious chaos vent
Sacred flesh drenched in fornication
Beloved by Set
May the winds gather her together
From the secrets of men
After thousands of years of terrifying silence
She comes again
Shattered are the icons of the worthless
The Goddess scorned is a Valkyrie born
Scattered are the wings of the virulent holy
Leave their husks to be the prey of vultures and
Prey of vultures and dogs
03
The Forest Whispers My Name
(05:06)
But I am drawn past their flickering lure
To the breathing forest that surrounds the room
Where the vigilant trees push out of the womb
I sip the blood-red wine
My thoughts weigh heavy with the burden of time
From knowledge drunk from the fountain of life
From chaos born out of love and the scythe
The forest beckons with her nocturnal call
To pull me close amid the baying of wolves
Where the bindings of Christ are downtrodden with scorn
In the dank, odiferous earth
We embrace like two lovers at death
A monument to the trapping of breath
As restriction is bled from the veins in my neck
To drop roses on my marbled breast
I lust for the wind and the flurry of leaves
And the perfume of flesh on the murderous breeze
To learn from the dark and the voices between
This is my will
The forest whispers my name
The forest whispers my name
Make some more fucking noise Nottingham
I walk the path
To the land of the Dark Immortals
Where the hungry ones will carry my soul
As the wild hunt careers through the boughs
Come to me my pale enchantress
In the moon of the woods we kiss
Artemis be near me
In the arms of the ancient oak
Where daylight hangs by a lunar noose
And the horned, hidden one is re-invoked
Dark fairy-tales in Phallestein
Symbols and signs to know us by
Is re-invoked
In Phallestein
The principle of evil
Evolution has been recalled
Beneath the spread of a magickal aeon
I stand enthralled
In the whispering forest
Yeah
What a fucking crap way to spend an Easter weekend
This is entitled
05
The Black Goddess Rises
(06:48)
All woman, pure predator
Wherein conspiracy and impulse dwell
Like a seething fall from grace
Thee I worship...
Thou art darkest Gabrielle
Lilith who rode the steed
Thou art pale Hecate
Rising from Thessaly
Crush their unworthy idols
No church shall bar our path
Seductive evil, drink your fill
Of the bleed Christ in your arms
You are in my dreams
The darkness in my eyes
The rapture in their screams
Black Goddess arise
Nothing will keep us apart
We could kill them all
If our desire tore free
Our union as one, sweet, sinful eve
And the night draws in beside her
As we embrace the dark side by side
I pour my soul in those eyes full of fire
To harvest the seed ploughed inside her
Archangel, snare the flesh
Such dry the ebbing wound
Leave them lifeless and broken
My beloved...
Oh, how I craved for you
You so pure and other-worldly with your scent of winter
Am I to bleed myself dry to see your delight?
And the fear retreats forever
(Come to me...Black Goddess arise)
When my secrets are buried in thine
(Come to me...Black Goddess arise)
Under seven stars we came together
(Come to me...Black Goddess arise)
To plot the new age's decline
(Come to me...Arise)
Ishtar my Queen
Come forth to me
And help me seize
My future from the House of Death
That in the release of immortality
I should slay their fucking nazarene
Ah...The lies...The jew...I kill for you...
You are in my dreams
The darkness in my eyes
The rapture in their screams
Black Goddess arise
Hidden lusts will break the gates and swarm
As love secretes the thrill for war
The virgin raped shall seek to whore
She-wolf bare your snarling jaw
Thee I Invoke, bornless one
All woman, pure predator
Wherein conspiracy and impulse dwell
Like a seething fall from grace
Thou art darkest Gabrielle
Lilith who rode the steed
Thou art pale Hecate
Rising from Thessaly
08
To Eve the Art of Witchcraft
(05:28)
Forever a voyeur I've been
Nocturnal Goddess of the Moon
So she comes, unseen
Thus speak
The burning seed, in thrust in Eve
And yearning keeps me, captive of desire
Make me as a flower that grows
Forever in your throne
That I might pollinate the world
With darkness as your own
Embrace me in spellbinding eyes
The fire of life that never dies
Tear deeper through my paper wounds
And never leave inside
Love shall consume and bathe the lady
Whom I worship and ride thereon
She will greet me as a serpent
In her dark, secret Eden
And I will always want
For her witchcraft is
Desire... (Desire....)
Desire...
My soul is poisoned from within...
My soul is poisoned from within...
My soul is poisoned...
I crawl with languid guilt to thee
Forever flushed in sin
Lamia, latria I give
My soul is poisoned from within
Wisdom breeds, fecundity
And her cunt she feeds, to fulfill her desire
To Eve I cum...
Sevenfold my passion wrought
To ransack Eden, and to taste the whore
I cling beyond her sabled court
She is a gateway, to that darkness lost
I am the gentle stream
That trickles through the summer glades
Of ever green peace
There we will drink my sleep, and dream....
I am the bleeding sky
The snatching wind of war
Blowing through the savage garden
My crown is fire, the erotic sinews of lust
Like strings to be pulled, and cut
I will make my puppets dance
The men will bow down before me
To take my flesh as some lucid thoughts
Of dark, unbridled love
I am all these things and more
Thus I await you, nemesis of restraint
The code of life, and the bride of evil itself
Oh, the fevered need for her
When greed and lust are sharpened in that one desire
The all-consuming fire
Reveal to me your mysteries, Witch
The tree is plundered but I have the seed
To be sown in thee
11
A Dream of Wolves in the Snow
(02:10)
The children of the night
What sweet music they make
May dreams be brought
That I might reach
The gentle strains
Of midnight speech
And frozen stars
That gild the forest floor
Through the swirling snow
Volkh's children come
To run with me
To hunt as one
To snatch the lambs of Christ
From where they fall
From where they fall
12
Summer Dying Fast
(05:39)
The garden swells with a thousand more wise
Forever flung to celestial dreams
Clawing at the grave of the dead Nazarene
I watch the storm approaching
The darkness calls my name
The trees are growing restless
They feel the season change
Their fruit has putrefied
Forbidden once and bound to die
The thread of life lies severed
On the brink of paradise
Grinning winds of hate unfurled
Towers tall that grip the sun
Talons stretch 'neath her veil
Reclamation, our time has come
Our time has come
Autumn spreads its golden wings
And lays the path for those unseen
A tangled web of evil spun at last
Winter spawn from barren thighs
To readdress, to slay the blind
And throw the reins untethered to the skies
They pray to the full moon rising
Diana moving with such infinite grace
Wrapped alone in a blanket of nightfall
How many secrets can they read by your face?
Will they know of majesty
Of beauty held in dream-dead sleep
And scarlet seas that bleed the frozen shores?
Will their God of bridled love
Assuage our rule from planes above
Or shrink in fear from chaos roused for war?
War!
Wrest askew the nails
That have held you, lurking deep
September prayers are waning
Burn the shrines of fettered sheep
Spearhead the insurrection
Of a world that seeks no end
We are what we are, what we shall be, again
Again
Appear; draped in terror
To the comfort of your kin
Stain the milky sunset red
And let the others
Summer's dying
13
Imperium Tenebrarum
(00:49)
We rend our blades through dogma and humility
Carve the future according to our will
Set worlds ablaze with our seething fire
Let you all acknowledge that we are here
As masters to rule this failing humanity
Our beings formed in rage and defiance
With strength to trample the weak and the foolish
And so we march with burning brands
Temples of flame on our path to glory
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Other reviews
By Fallen
"The Principle Of Evil Made Flesh is not just an EP, it is a gateway to Darkness."
"Those funereal melodies pierce your flesh, you will never be the same again."
By Nightmetaller
"Probably the most sincere and original of the band, an absolute masterpiece that founded a genre."
"The album is rich in all the most significant elements of Cradle: piercing screaming, female spoken parts, and an important rhythm section."
By Lord.Galamoth
Cradle of Filth suck. It is not an idea or a theory, but an unyielding, monumental certainty.
Because black metal is, above all, emotion, and in this CD, there is no trace of it.
