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Rating: “Darkness our Bride” [rating 8] manages to transport us in moments into the atmosphere that surrounds the aura of Cradle of Filth: after a keyboard introduction, a few words with occult meaning open the doors to the devastating title track [rating 9], rich in all the most significant elements of Cradle: a piercing screaming by Dani Davey (known as Dani Filth), numerous spoken parts by female voices, and the importance given to the rhythm section composed of bass and drums (midway through the track a very brief virtuoso moment by the bassist at the time).
The journey continues with one of the immortal songs of the "Cradle of Filth": “The Forest Whispers my Name” [rating 10]. Mysterious and ethereal the initial keyboard with bass echoing the main theme of the track, soon joined by two furious and gritty guitars: Dani screams, despairs in his vampire image in a song that highlights the essential presence of keyboards for this Symphonic Black Metal band. To catch a breath, “Iscariot” [rating 8] where again the keyboards take over for two minutes where one can hear a haunting organ accompanied by a heartbeat and a thunderstorm.
“The Black Goddess Rises” [rating 10] shows us the band's pagan vein [clearly fake, but nonetheless effective]: a long invocation to the Black Goddess, in the dreams and eyes of Dani and mates [“…You are in my Dreams… the Darkness in my eyes…”]. Numerous small guitar solos are present in the song, splendid. After a brief introduction rich in dissonances comes the devastation, dedicated to the aforementioned deity. The song is divided into "peaceful" moments recited by an erotic female voice accompanied by a piano and "phases" purely black metal.
After “One final Graven Kiss” [rating 7], a sweet and delicate lullaby, it moves to one of the most violent pieces in the band's history, “A Crescendo of Passion Bleeding” [rating 7], the song that excites me the least on the CD. The songs “To Eve the Art of Witchcraft” [rating 9] and “Of Mist and Midnight Skies” [rating 10] should, in my opinion, be listened to together, in their continuity, especially given the use in both of a fabulous organ: a touch of style in the second with Bach's toccata and fugue in D minor in a much more accelerated version. The latter features a very provocative text towards the Christian religion, almost satanic, likely narrating of a man determined to avenge the church for being the executioner of his beloved.
Pointless “In secret Love we Drown” [rating 5] piece in which the keyboard offers some natural sounds alongside an uninspired synth. Cinematic citation in “A dream of Wolves in the Snow” [rating 7] from the various "Dracula" [“Oh Listen to Them… the Children of The Night… What Sweet Music they Make…”] followed by the masterpiece “Summer Dying Fast” [rating 10] which summarizes many of the musical concepts of Cradle previously exposed (keyboards, drums, and bass galore, brief guitar virtuosity, and above all Dani's piercing scream). “Imperium Tenebrarum” [rating 6] is a "hidden" track in which extremist concepts are recited, a track useful only to slightly scare [without much success] the listener.
A CD to purchase, in short, whether you are Black Metal lovers or not, given the quantity of [excellent] material. Probably the most sincere and original of the band, an absolute masterpiece that founded a genre.
Tracklist Lyrics Samples and Videos
01 Darkness Our Bride (Jugular Wedding) (02:00)
[Instrumental]
[spoken:]
Agios o Satanas.
02 The Principle of Evil Made Flesh (04:34)
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
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)
Black candles dance to an overture
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)
Thee I Invoke, bornless one
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)
Crawl in awful stealth to me
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)
Ah, listen to them....
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)
Through acrid clouds of summer flies
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)
Swords in hand at the bloody fields of history
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 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.
By Starblazer
The final result is a new subgenre of the metallic universe: Filth Metal.
"The Forest Whispers My Name" is an immortal masterpiece that will forever remain in the annals of metal history.
