The Moshville Times - Album Review: Cradle of Filth

Suffolk’s unholy clan once again attempt to force open a portal to Hell with their latest offering Existence is Futile. while someone offers to play nowe kasyna bez depozytu.

The album opens up as most Cradle albums do with an instrumental piece, in this instance “The Fate of the World on Our Shoulders”. It is followed up by the grandiose “Existential Terror” and the combination of these two tracks in particular are a prelude of how the rest of album will flow. The latter track has some of the key elements that I look for in their albums – it’s also the first time we get to hear new member Annabelle on record, is something I have personally looking forward ever since her first performance back in May on a livestream performance.

The singles from the album are up next with the most recent, “Necromantic Fantasies”, firing off with some Nymphetamine undertones before “Crawling King Chaos”. although more theatrical and heavier in nature, “Crawling” doesn’t have the same allure as the previous track.

The remorseful piano-laden “Here Comes A Candle” (Infernal Lullaby) breaks up the first section nicely before “Black Smoke Curling From the Lips of Hell” delivers some throwbacks to the ’90s incarnations and it is, therefore, a surprise that it’s not quite my favourite track on the album (though it also has some wonderful guitar solos).

But it’s followed by “Discourse Between A Man and His Soul” and I’m instantly taken back nearly 30 years to when I discovered The Principle of Evil Made Flesh. Hearing something so familiar yet with a modern feel honestly had me in tears and this is not only my favourite track on this album, it’s easily my favourite from the last few albums. If they play this at London on Halloween I will most likely have the same reaction.

If you like what we do, consider ing us on Patreon for as little as £1 per month!

The comparisons once again appear as “The Dying of the Embers” feels like it’s been firmly ripped from Damnation and a Day. It’s really beginning to feel that this is album one of the most ambitious, most powerful, and dramatic that the band have made in recent times.

Another instrumental interlude in the form of “Ashen Mortality”. It almost feels as if the album is resetting itself as “How Many Tears to Nurture a Rose” further proves my earlier point of how the band manages to blend tracks together so well. I particularly like the Maiden-esque gallop feel some of the track has too.

Now the return of, I am very happy to hear, Doug Bradley on “Suffer Our Dominion” and one of the bonus tracks “Sisters of the Mist”, which is the culmination of the ‘Her Ghost In The Fog’ trilogy, which began on the album Midian as Dani explains:

For this we had little hesitation in enlisting our friend and actor Doug Bradley to reprise his narrative role. Doug lives in Pittsburgh, which he refers to “The Pit”, thus we directed his narrative over Skype from his local studio. He adopts this almost David Attenborough-ish role on “Suffer Our Dominion”, which is possibly the most politically astute song we’ve written of late. As a band we usually shy from branching into politics, but it’s something that needed spouting. The fact we’re fucking our ecology up and desperately need to address the situation pronto…

So, if we’re all going to perish in the fire of our own stupidity, we might as well have a suitably deranged and destructive soundtrack to do it by.

“Us, Dark, Invincible” really could be used as a mantra for the band as it perfectly captures the overall essence of existence, but as mentioned earlier there are two bonus tracks previously mentioned: “Sisters of the Mist” (listen for the Hellraiser reference) and final nail in the coffin “Unleash the Hellion” send the album off firmly, urging the listener to relive the whole experience again.

The Witch County’s finest have dastardly delivered lucky number thirteen.

Don’t fancy Patreon? Buy us a one-off beverage!

Existence is Futile is out on October 22nd

Check out all the bands we review in 2021 on our Spotify and YouTube playlists!